


Fixing

by s_alt



Series: The Science of Restoration [2]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Incredible Hulk (2008), Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, Pre-Slash, Sexual Tension, sometimes things suck, why can't this be slash?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:34:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 70,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_alt/pseuds/s_alt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“He</em> would<em> talk to you, you know,” Tony called after him.  “If you’d let him.  If you treated him like a person sometimes instead of a threat.”</em></p>
<p>  <em>Clint paused, that one hitting home.  He deserved it.  Maybe they all did.  But the truth, too, was important, and that’s what Clint gave Tony as he turned to give him one last look before leaving for his rooms:</em></p>
<p><em>“He </em>is<em> a threat, Tony.  And the quicker you and he get to accepting that, the quicker this torture can end.”</em></p>
<p>In which Tony, Bruce, Clint, Pepper, and others have to face reality, and don't like how it looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **UPDATE as of 6/18/14:**
> 
> I have been doing a lot of editing on the ending. A lot of sitting time had me rethinking, and I think for the better. I'm slowly working through revisions, and appreciate you all sticking with me!
> 
> Still marked as a work in progress, though there is an end, and it _will_ be finished.
> 
> As always, many thanks to my beta readers: [valdemort](http://archiveofourown.org/users/valdemort/pseuds/valdemort), [SlowEvolution](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SlowEvolution/pseuds/SlowEvolution), and Mandarin, for all their help and support.

“HULK HATE BULLIES!”

“Oh, I see that,” Clint nodded, holding both hands up toward the Hulk in what he hoped was a calming, _no-one’s-fighting-anymore_ gesture. A terrified, whimpering man was gripped in the Hulk’s right hand, looking desperately at Clint, who had been trying to get the Hulk to drop him for the last couple of minutes. He doubled-checked his comms. “Tony, how ‘bout you? You get that?”

Tony was mid-flight, going as fast as thrusters would take him. “Got speakers, Legolas? Let me talk to him.”

The Hulk was eyeing the man he held, breaths coming in great puffs. He shook that great green fist once, and the man started to cry. More than anything, the Hulk look confused. 

Clint took his chance, firing an arrow into a parked car nearby. A second passed as it locked into place and spread open, tiny speakers pressed hard against the metal to amplify. “You’re a go, Stark,” Clint noted, and the sound reverberated through the street. Hulk looked up, around, searching for the source.

“Big Guy!” Tony’s voice echoed. The Hulk’s face brightened a bit as one edge of his mouth curled upward. “Wait for me, okay?”

The Hulk pulled himself tall, man still in his grasp. “STARK!” he cried, easily ten times as loud as Tony’s voice had been a moment before.

Tony winced a little, and his ears rang as he responded. “In the flesh and in the air. Just about a minute from where you are. Don’t do anything without me.”

Clint watched as the Hulk considered, silently readying another taser arrow just in case the Other Guy decided to squeeze harder anyway. The monster lifted the man he held once more, eyes studying him as that huge chest puffed up and down. And then, at last, the fingers loosened, and the man fell sprawling to the ground.

“WAIT,” Hulk answered as Clint hurried over, slinging bow behind his back, and checked the man. His eyes were wide and he was breathing too fast, but nothing was broken. Clint grabbed one arm and dragged the man further away, into an alley nearby where other bystanders had huddled, wide-eyed and terrified.

Tony switched his comms over to speak to Clint privately. “What happened? Give me the quick and dirty.”

Clint glanced back to where the Hulk stood, scanning the skies, apparently actually waiting for Tony. “Not much to tell. I picked Banner up, just where you said, and we were walking back to the car. I guess I was distracted watching for stragglers, because next I knew, some guy in a suit lifted his hand to his kid, and poof - Bruce went all big and green and grabbed him.”

Tony made a sound somewhere between frustration and resignation. “No worries; I got this. You just make sure no one else does anything stupid.”

Clint glanced at the cowering crowd, the now-empty street. “Stupid. Right,” he murmured, keeping bow at the ready.

Tony clanked down near Clint a few seconds later, facing the Hulk and striding toward him immediately. His tinny voice echoed a bit in the close quarters of buildings looming on either side, and Clint could see faces pressed up against windows, staring. Oh, this was not good publicity.

“Fight’s over, big guy,” Tony said. “Let it go.” His words held force, but weren’t harsh. There was something else under that tone.

Hulk responded to it with irritation. He jabbed an accusing finger in the direction of the alley. “BULLY. HIT -”

Tony stopped him by putting up a hand, and Clint marveled. Hell, he was still marveling from hearing the Hulk use _words_. 

“I know,” Tony continued. “But he couldn’t have hurt you, or anyone else. You’re still just amped from the fight; Hulking at shadows. You get me?” He was standing right in front of the Hulk now, looking up into great eyes that stared down at him intently.

The Hulk took three heaving breaths, looking around the tiny street, eyeing its little storefronts carefully. One huge hand reached out and picked up a fruit stand to look under it, letting it fall when he saw nothing. He looked disappointed.

“HULK AT SHADOWS,” the Other Guy repeated, and sat down heavily. 

Tony took a step forward and put a hand on that great arm. “No harm done - mostly. But let’s get out of here, okay?” He shot a glance back at Clint as the Hulk nodded, got to his feet.

Iron Man took to the air as Hulk leaped, nearly matching the suit’s velocity. Clint, still a bit - a _lot_ \- taken aback, turned to help the lucky guy in the suit to his feet.

******

“You mind telling me what happened back there?” 

Clint wasn’t criticizing, Tony reminded himself, biting back a particularly scathing response. It took effort. Bruce had gone back to his suite the moment he’d emerged, muttering weary apologies for the Hulk-sized hole in the penthouse ceiling. Tony would have preferred to follow him, tell him it was fine, remind him to try and eat and drink something before collapsing. But Clint was wearing his _I will not be denied_ face, so Tony had stayed, working hard not to be pissed off about it.

“Uh,” Tony finally answered, “the three of us just saved New York from an uprising of giant slug-things?”

Clint shot him _that_ look, the one he reserved for Tony alone and used when Tony was being deliberately difficult, which happened often. Tony, for his part, settled back in his chair and flashed his trademark smile, showing lots of teeth.

“You know what I mean, Tony,” Clint responded, and Tony had to admire the man’s ability to maintain intensity in the face of snark. “We were under the impression that Dr. Banner had things under control.”

Tony couldn’t help but get angry at that. “Bruce _does_ have it under control,” he shot back, eyes flashing as he leaned forward again.

Clint was unmoved. “Not what I saw.”

“Then you saw wrong.” Tony was getting to his feet now, moving in Clint’s direction. “Did he hurt anyone? Destroy anything?”

Clint considered, unphased by Tony’s approach. When Tony stopped a foot away, he met the man’s gaze with calm resolve. “Well, there are two new potholes on 11th, and that man’s gonna have nightmares for months.”

“A man who _deserves_ them. He hit a _kid_. Or - was gonna hit him.”

Clint actually blinked and shifted his weight, brow furrowing a bit. “Hold on, Tony. Did you just say that man _deserved_ to be attacked by the Hulk?” His eyes registered disbelief.

Tony’s eyes rolled. “Oh come on. The guy was barely touched.” But the question registered, and he knew he’d have to think about his response later. It wasn’t rational, that much was certain. 

“He could have been,” Clint replied, quieter. “ _You_ were.”

Tony glowered, turning away to head to the bar. “Thanks for the fucking reminder.”

Now Clint was moving, following Tony. “Hey, sorry. Just...I’m a little taken aback by all this, you know?” He settled elbows on the the opposite side of the bar from Tony, leaning in, relaxing a little at last. “It’s kind of...amazing...to learn that the Hulk actually _speaks_.” He shook his head. “It takes some getting used to.”

Tony poured two glasses, smiling a little. “Wait until he starts using your name. That’s a whole new level of _oh shit_ right there.” He pushed one of the glasses to Clint and raised his own. “To squishing evil slug creatures.”

Clint returned the gesture, and they both drank.

*****

Bruce slept fitfully.

In his dreams, he was a star, bright and fiery and huge, drawing masses toward him. He heated them, burned them when they got too close, came to know their rotations, their orbits. The masses attracted to him were huge and whole, but some could not hold. They were undone, falling apart to scatter, and only the strongest remained to circle him and bring forth life.

When he woke - too soon, because his body was still wrecked from two transformations in one day - he remembered the dream completely, and something in him burned with shame.

He was _starving_. That was why he’d woken up. His stomach screamed to be filled, as was always the case when the Other Guy came out, and he’d collapsed into sleep before dealing with it. Not a good move on his part.

“Jarvis -” Bruce started, but was interrupted by that now-familiar voice.

“Your table is set, sir. Please, indulge.”

Bruce rubbed his eyes and wandered into the dining room of his suite. Sure enough, the table was set, and one plate was piled with roast meat, potatoes, vegetables, gravy. He couldn’t get to it fast enough. It was an effort to use utensils.

Bruce ate that plate empty, filled it, ate it empty again. There wasn’t enough room for the energy he needed to replenish. He groaned, so full it hurt, knowing he’d have to do it again in a few hours just to keep from wasting. The Other Guy used him up.

And he’d come out, twice in one day..

The first time was deliberate, after Clint had shown up in the tower and explain that weird huge slug-things had started emerging from the sewers and swallowing people. Natasha was on assignment, as was Steve, and Thor was currently incommunicado. So it had been up to them, and Bruce had been happy to let the Other Guy loose for a short while, give him a chance to explore and enjoy himself as he squished and smashed his way through the battle.

It was good. Excellent. Wonderful. The Other Guy had been pent up too long, and the release was freeing.

But that second time wasn’t intentional, and had caught them both off guard. The Hulk had come to the fore confused, he remembered that much. And Bruce had receded, equally lost. And now he was spent, exhausted beyond words, unable to muster the energy to consider what had happened.

“Shall I turn off the lights, sir?” Jarvis came as Bruce settled back in his chair, almost asleep again despite the strange angle. Bruce tried to conjure words, but only managed a grunt of assent.

He was asleep before the lights went out, dreaming of stars.


	2. Chapter 2

A day passed without Bruce. That wasn’t unexpected; Tony and Bruce had been studying the transformation for the past several months, in the aftermath of that near-miss with Bruce, and they knew that the energy expended by the Other Guy was substantial. Bruce often needed a lot of sleep to recuperate, and Tony tried not to crowd him. 

Still, he checked, especially since Clint was still around and showing no signs of leaving.

“How’s he doing, Jarvis?”

“Fully asleep, sir, after his third meal in as many hours.”

“In bed?”

“No sir. In the chair, at the table.”

Tony sighed. “Patch me in.”

He woke Bruce as gently as possible - which wasn’t gentle at all, as the man was lost, deep and snoring, and Tony had to yell to get his attention. But he did, at last, and Bruce stumbled to the bed to collapse. Clint watched the exchange silently, his expression revealing nothing, and Tony was reminded that he was dealing with someone well versed in the art of scrutiny. It made him uncomfortable.

So he changed the subject. “That arrow with the speaker your idea? Pretty brilliant.”

Clint smirked, crossing arms over his chest as the display with Bruce on it blinked out. He turned more fully toward Tony. “Mostly. I work with SHIELD R&D pretty closely on those things. They’ve got some great minds there.” He studied Tony, wondering about the sudden change in subject, keeping his thoughts to himself.

Tony just nodded. “You know, if we modified the design so that a modulated frequency could be sent through it, controlled by...well, you, or anyone...we could make a hell of a resonance bomb. Find the right frequency, and you could shatter pretty much anything.”

Clint raised eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, heading for the elevator. “You still got one?”

“Three,” Clint answered, following, already reaching into his quiver to pull one out, place it in Tony’s outstretched hand. Tony hefted it, examined, and smiled.

“Oh, yeah, this’ll be easy.” He clapped Clint on the back. “We’ll have you busting down doors without explosives in no time.”

*****

The sound reverberating through the tower was low and deep and rattled Bruce’s belly in an intensely uncomfortable way. He was hungry - _again_ \- and extremely thirsty, but above all, he just wanted that sound to stop.

“Tony, for Christ’s sake -” Bruce started, pushing open the door of the lab with one hip as he wiped sleep from his eyes, running fingers through his still-mussed hair. “Keep it -” He stopped mid-sentence, taken off-guard by the sight of Clint, standing there with Tony, both men doubled over with laughter.

“- down,” Bruce finished, watching as both he and Tony turned to him and paused with wide, surprised eyes, then fell into laughter again. Tony held his stomach and wheezed; Clint beat a nearby tabletop with an open palm, eyes squeezed so tight that tears leaked out.

“God, and we actually, we -” Tony gasped, shaking his head, fighting for air. He took several deep, calming breaths, reaching over and shutting off the sound as he wiped tears from his eyes. “Tried to warn him, we really did.”

Clint nodded, catching his own breath, looking up at Bruce for the first time. ‘Hey,” he chuckled, smiling.

Bruce was still a little taken aback, feeling strangely exposed in his pajama pants and bare feet with Clint standing there. “Uh, hey.” He looked to Tony for explanation.

“I was just telling Clint about that time...the sound lab, and that lieutenant, all ‘you will show me what you are working on right now’, so we did, and his _whole team_...it was his fault, we tried to warn him...god, Bruce, you remember?” Tony was still chuckling, wiping at his eyes.

That wasn’t the explanation Bruce had been looking for, but he nodded anyway. He did remember. “Waking up to shit jokes,” he murmured, shaking his head as he padded over to the refrigerator, snatching up a carton of orange juice.

“Hey, oh, I’m sorry; I wasn’t thinking. Did we wake you?” Tony looked penitent, despite the laugh lines lingering on his face, as he hurried over to snag a glass, pass it Bruce’s way. Bruce took it - a practiced move, one Clint could tell had played out many times before.

Bruce poured, shaking his head. “No, don’t worry about it. I was already up. Just...” he stopped, lifting the glass to his lips, drinking it all down in several big gulps. He sighed relief. “Gah. So thirsty.”

Tony watched quietly while Bruce refilled his glass, and Clint could see worry settle in those eyes. “Worse than normal?” he asked quietly as Bruce drank. Bruce just nodded.

“Gotta be because it happened twice in one day,” Tony responded, moving quickly toward one of the laboratory displays, bringing it to life with the touch of one finger. He moved a couple of things around on the screen, opened a folder. “Here we are...right. How long was he out this time, Jarvis?”

“Twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes, of which eighteen hours, twenty-seven minutes were spent asleep. And he ate six meals.”

Bruce groaned, setting down the now-empty carton. “Do we have to do this right now?” The look he shot Tony’s way was long-suffering. “Can I at least have coffee first?” 

“Samples first, coffee after,” Tony responded, putting out his hand. Bruce sighed, but gave Tony his arm, barely wincing when Tony pressed a needle to his skin. He let Tony take blood and skin samples, rubbing his bleary eyes with the butt of his free hand.

Clint watched all of this unfold, effectively forgotten. Eventually, Bruce shuffled off to find coffee, and Tony became lost in entering the samples, reviewing data. Clint had to clear his throat to remind Tony he was there.

Tony’s head shot up. “Oh, hey. Sorry, this’ll just take a minute.” He went back to clicking and moving things around on the screen in front of him. “Just need to capture...ah. Hm.” He sat back, staring at the screen, rubbing his beard, considering hard whatever he saw.

“I’ll just...” Clint noted, gesturing to the door. “Right.” He left Tony deep in thought and followed Bruce to the kitchens.

*****

“You two make a cute couple.”

“What?” Bruce looked up from the steaming cup he was pouring, spilling some of the coffee on his hand. He cursed under his breath and set the pot down, going for the sink.

Clint smirked, but picked up a towel on the way over to Bruce. “You’ve got quite the routine, you and Tony.” He handed the towel over to Bruce, who took it with his free hand without meeting Clint’s gaze.

“Thanks,” Bruce replied. He ran his hand under cold water - an automatic reaction, since really, nothing much actually hurt him for long anymore. But the action was comforting, familiar, helped make him feel more normal. Part of him wished the scalding sensation could last a little longer. 

Clint nodded, leaning a hip on the counter with a relaxed grace. He watched Bruce silently while the man dried off his hands, mopped up the spill. “Really - you two have this down to a science.”

Bruce rolled his eyes Clint’s direction, words unnecessary. He picked up his coffee cup and headed for a nearby table, blowing on the hot liquid more to watch the steam move than anything else. 

Clint followed. “Okay, okay, stupid cliche, but really - it’s a piece of work to watch. How long have you two been working together now?”

Bruce considered while he took his first sip of coffee, appreciating its warmth. “Um....five months now? On a consistent basis, that is.” Bruce shrugged, lifting his mug for another sip. “Maybe a year off and on all together.”

Clint whistled, but otherwise remained silent, and Bruce was too interested in coffee to care any further for talk. He hefted the cup in both hands, appreciating its warmth, ready to be fully awake and aware again. 

After the transformation, Bruce slept in fits - an hour here, two there, a few minutes - and the spaces between them were blurry, filled with memories of destruction or other strange dreams. It wasn’t restful - just necessary - and Bruce was glad to leave it behind.

Still, Bruce was thankful it was possible to actually _do_ it, here in the safety of the tower. When he’d been on the road, always hunted, he’d had to get to his feet and move the moment awareness hit him, and he’d not realized how incredibly dazed and shaken this left him. He’d been hungry, of course, was always starving on the road, picking up food everywhere he could find it. And yet he knew he wasn’t holding, saw his cheeks growing hollow, his muscles shrink as they were tapped for fuel.

Only when he’d found a means of controlling the Other Guy did Bruce start looking and feeling more himself again. He was still, of course, incredibly on guard, but he slept a little better. And without any incidents to drain his energy, he’d fallen more or less back into a regular pattern, muscles filling out again. 

In the safety of the tower, though, Bruce could afford to listen to what his body asked of him, actually act upon it, and a pattern had emerged: this prolonged period of fitful sleep dotted with hunger pangs and potent dreams. Tony put the suite together for him four months ago, just off the main lab, so he could keep watch while working and be ready, when Bruce emerged, to take samples, run their tests.

Clint snapped Bruce back to the moment, dragging out a chair and sitting down across from him. “So... _you_ want to tell me what happened back there?”

Bruce finished another sip of coffee, set the mug down, wrapped his hands around it. He looked up from his cup toward Clint, who was studying him with that practiced, blank expression, and considered his answer before speaking. Clint was patient.

Bruce’s thumbs tapped his mug idly as he spoke, looking a bit away from Clint. “Yeah...sorry about that. I’m still not sure what triggered - “

“No, no,” Clint interrupted, “Not that part.” Bruce looked back up, and Clint met that gaze with a neutral expression. The part where Tony talked the Hulk down.”

Bruce’s lips twitched a moment. “He...he did?” Bruce couldn’t remember. One hand went up to his lips, rubbed there thoughtfully.

Clint showed the briefest hint of a smile. “Yup. Pretty easily. Looked like the two were chummy.”

Bruce nodded, still thoughtful, thumb pressed to his lips as he talked. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he murmured absently.

Clint’s eyebrow hitched up. “Surprised me.”

Bruce’s eyes went hard for a moment, and Clint could tell he was biting back a cutting remark. “Just a fact, Bruce,” Clint added, hoping that helped.

Bruce just sighed, dropping his hand back to his mug and picking it up. “We’re not keeping anything important from you, Clint,” he responded as he shoved back from the table to stand. 

Clint moved with him. “I wasn’t accusing,” he answered quickly, crossing the space between himself and Bruce, “but you and Tony are both testy about the subject, and I don’t know why. He stared daggers at me, too. And now you’re - what? Walking out? Bruce, come on - it looks bad.” He stopped a comfortable distance away from Bruce, out of reach.

Bruce licked his lips, thought about it, really considered what Clint said. Clint watched thoughts tick away until one settled in Bruce’s eyes and he looked to up meet Clint’s now-questioning gaze. “I suppose it does,” he responded, clearing his throat as he marked the distance between them with with a single, long look. 

Clint saw where this was going. 

“Are you worried I’m losing it again, Clint?” Bruce asked, voice carefully level.

Clint considered only briefly before responding as every agent had been trained after the incident with Tony. He simply had no other words. “It’s my job to assess all potential threats in any situation and eliminate them.” He knew it sounded bad.

Bruce pursed his lips and nodded at that, dropped his eyes to the floor.

Clint’s finger twitched. “I didn’t mean -”

“Yes, you did,” Bruce interrupted, putting up a hand to stop Clint. It worked. Clint watched Bruce smile wanly, blink, rub a still-weary eye. “That’s okay. I get that.” 

Clint, who could think of nothing to say to that, kept silent.

At last, Bruce cleared his throat and looked back up with resolve. “Right. So, you want a debrief. We can do that. Just...let me shower first. Be back in the lab in an hour.”


	3. Chapter 3

“We really don’t have much to go on yet,” Bruce called in Tony’s direction, voice muffled by the towel still over his head. He rubbed his hair as dry as he could get it, then placed the towel neatly over the nearby rack.

“We’ve got plenty,” Tony responded from the adjoining room. “Come have breakfast.”

Bruce pulled a shirt over his head as he stepped into the dining area, still barefoot. He hardly bothered to wear shoes anymore; it had been nearly three months since he’d set foot outside the tower, and he didn’t need them inside. Except in the lab - but there, he had a pair sitting at the ready. 

Even now, Bruce was surprised at how easily he’d accepted all this. Since the night he told Tony about the Other Guy and how he came to be, Bruce had found it increasingly difficult to deal with other people. It had been dangerous for him to go out before, with Ross and his team still actively hunting him, but after that night, people were just too much. The jostling, random voices, accidental touches - all felt deliberate, aimed at him. The first couple of times, he’d kept calm on his own, but returned to the tower jangled; the third time, though, he’d been so close that his eyes bled green, and Tony had to snatch him into an alley and talk him down. After that, he’d simply stayed in the tower or rode with Tony to one of the few remote labs they’d established together. 

Tony, Jarvis, and the lab. This was Bruce’s life now. The Avengers, the missions - they were the Other Guy’s, not his. Sometimes, it was isolating, but it was _safe_. For the time being, at least he didn’t have to run, and that was - enough.

“Is it breakfast time?” Bruce asked, eyeing the plate piled high with scrambled eggs, vegetables, toast. 

Tony shook his head, swallowing a bite from his own plate. “More like two in the afternoon. But you just woke up, so - breakfast.”

Bruce sat down in front of his plate, just to Tony’s left. “Do I need more?”

Tony nodded this time. “You’re still pretty tapped out. Go ahead.”

Bruce took a bite of toast, settled into his meal as Tony talked. “Look, all Clint wants is an explanation of what happened out there - why you Hulked out all of a sudden, and how I could talk the Big Guy down. That’s easy, right?”

Bruce shrugged. “If we grossly oversimplify, sure. But Tony, you know that’s not all he’s looking for.”

Tony took a deep breath, let it out. “I know. Hell, they _all_ do at this point. You nearly lost it on Steve three weeks back when he said he hated peas, and don’t think he didn’t notice. They’re on edge around you.” Tony punctuated his statement by pointing his fork Bruce’s direction.

“They were never _off_ the edge around me, Tony,” Bruce replied.

Tony pondered that, mulling over the first month or so after Loki’s capture. That had been a good time, with the rest of the Avengers visiting frequently. Tony had put together rooms for each of them in tower, gave them reign to decorate and set up as they wished, promising every team member that they’d always have a place there. Bruce had interacted with them more then, smiling at the jokes, even sharing drinks with Steve and Clint and Natasha. And the greeting he’d received from Thor, the one time he had visited, was positively warm; the hug Thor gave him had left Bruce blushing.

But then, there had been Tony’s accident, and things changed. The team still assembled when needed, but rarely stayed long, and the camaraderie that had been growing simply withered. “They were, for a short while,” he finally responded quietly.

Bruce winced, remembering, and his appetite left him. He pushed the plate away.

“Sorry,” Tony said, equally quiet, then leaned forward to rest elbows on the table. “Bruce, look, it’s your life. What do _you_ want to tell them?”

“That I’m not a threat,” Bruce stated flatly. “That’s it’s okay to be around me. That I won’t hurt them. But I can’t; I don’t know it’s true.”

“Bruce, honestly, I think we have enough evidence to assume that -”

Bruce put a hand over his eyes, a gesture Tony had come to recognize meant Bruce wasn’t listening. He stopped mid-sentence, waited.

After a sigh, Bruce dropped his hand, looked Tony in the eyes. A little pained, a little frustrated, yes - Tony saw that - but most of his expression was simple acceptance. “I don’t like assumptions,” he responded, licking his lips, pulling the bottom one in to chew it for a moment. 

Tony thought for just a moment, then brightened considerably. “Consider it a hypothesis, then,” and grinned when Bruce looked up, a little more hopeful. “Right? We’ve tested the hell out of it in the lab environment, yes?”

“Sure, though a few more experiments would -”

Tony waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and interrupted. “- be unnecessary. No, now what we need, Bruce, is a better test option. That last piece of missing data. And that means we need the right lab assistants.” He looked toward Bruce, eyes wide and eager, grinning hard.

Bruce looked back, wanting to refuse. But inside him, the Other Guy was roused to interest as well, and Bruce knew he’d have a hard time saying no to both.

“Fine, fine,” Bruce groaned, earning him a clap on the shoulder from Tony, whose infectious enthusiasm bled over and brought a smile to Bruce’s face as well. “Come on, let’s bring Clint in on this.”

*****

Tony and Bruce had finally paused in explaining their work to Clint. Truth was, Clint had been lost within the first thirty seconds, but watching their interaction - so intense, so enthusiastic - was just far too fascinating to stop them. He knew what they were explaining was eloquent, and that it excited them both, to the point that they were finishing one another’s sentences, equations, calculations. It was like watching a dance birthed from a culture you’d never interacted with; you knew something in it _mattered_ , was indeed full of meaning, but you’d never be able to suss out what it was.

Now, there were somewhere around two dozen data tables on the displays near Clint, a few equations on a nearby whiteboard, and a couple of curious scientists, pausing, looking at Clint expectantly.

“Well?” Tony asked, unable to handle the silence.

“Well, what?” Clint asked in return, noticing Bruce’s shoulders drop a touch.

Tony kept poring eyes on Clint. “Well, what do you think? Do we know enough that you’d be willing to help with the next step?”

Clint blinked. “Uh, help how?”

Now both Tony and Bruce’s shoulders slumped, and Tony fell into the nearest chair with a groan. Clint looked from one to the other, apologetic.

Bruce broke the long silence that followed. “Ok - let’s try a different approach.” He moved to one of the desks in the lab, opened drawers, pulled out half a dozen devices. Tony automatically moved to pick up a couple, turn them on, start clicking something on the displays.

“After the...after I hurt Tony,” Bruce started, and Clint could tell how hard it was for the man to talk about, “we had good reason to focus on ensuring something like that could never happen again, right?”

There was a long pause, and Clint realized Bruce was waiting for acknowledgement. “Oh. Right.”

Bruce nodded, Tony setting down one device and picking up another to tinker with as the explanation continued. “Which meant we had to know a few things: first, why the incident happened.” 

Bruce paused there, overly long, and Clint could see it wasn’t a happy subject. He watched Bruce consider, pursing his lips, idly brushing one with his thumb. Clint noticed that Tony had gone still as well, watching and waiting.

At last, Bruce cleared his throat, looked pointedly away from either man. “Let’s just say that a really bad memory was triggered.” Bruce looked down at his watch, fiddled with the wristband. “And...the Other Guy came out seeing it, and acted accordingly. Just for a fraction of a second, but...that was enough.”

Bruce closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair to rub his head a moment. He looked toward Tony and murmured, “‘momentary dissociative episodic memory event’ was a lot easier.” Tony snorted and smiled, eyes softening a bit, and patted Bruce’s arm, letting his hand linger a second. 

Then the moment was gone, and Tony returned to his tinkering while Bruce moved on. “Second: what, if anything, could be done to prevent it from happening again.”

“We’re working on that bit,” Tony said, “but it’s a complex problem with a lot of unknown variables.” He pointed to the longest of the equations, the one that took up nearly a full board, as if in explanation. Clint just nodded, not bothering to look it over.

“One of these variables we’ve managed to pinpoint, however,” Bruce continued, and nodded over to Tony, who put down the piece he’d been playing with and picked up the first one. It looked an awful lot like a sophisticated stud finder. 

“This,” Tony explained, showing the device to Clint. “Is a radiation detector. Right now, I’ve got it calibrated specifically for gamma radiation.” He handed it to Clint. “Here. Walk toward Bruce, and watch the display.”

Clint took the device as Tony asked, looked at it. The display read 1.3 nSv/h. “Nanosieverts per hour,” Tony explained unhelpfully. Clint shook his head, then started walking toward Bruce standing about six feet away. 

Nothing changed on the device until Clint was about two feet away, just inside of arm’s length. Then, the number ticked up, first to 2.0, then 2.7, 3.3, 4.1. At a footstep away from Bruce, with the device only inches from him, the number jumped to 5.2.

Clint took a step back. He knew a little something of gamma radiation, but not enough to know what level of exposure was dangerous. 

Bruce smirked. “Don’t worry. It’s just a little above what you get exposed to naturally outside. But notice where it started ticking up? Just a little closer to me than you were willing to stand earlier, in the kitchen.”

Clint had noticed that already. “Good instincts, I guess.”

“Honed,” Tony responded, walking over to them both now with something small and sharp-looking in his hand. “Every single one of you SHIELD agents stop almost the exact same distance from Bruce, every time.” Clint raised an eyebrow, questioning, and Tony rolled his eyes. “Surveillance tapes. Helicarrier. I got it all, remember?”

“Right,” Clint responded, wanting to say something else, but Tony suddenly pressed that sharp metal against Bruce’s right forearm and pulled. Bruce winced and squeezed his eyes shut as a clean, straight scalpel cut opened, started to bleed.

“Look now,” Tony said, motioning to the detector in Clint’s hand as Bruce reached for a nearby rag and pressed it to the wound. “Hurry - it doesn’t last long.”

Clint, still taken aback by the sudden flash of scalpel, looked down, eyes widening fast as the display numbers jumped upward. Past 500, past 1000. It peaked at 1290 as Clint took several steps back quickly. 

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Tony said quickly. “It’s a big number, but it’s not that bad. Still less than your average CT scan.”

Clint looked at Bruce first, blinking in surprise, but Bruce just looked a little awkward, shifting from one foot to the other, obviously not appreciating the scrutiny as he cleaned the wound that had already started to heal. So he moved on to Tony, who seemed positively eager to explain.

“Somehow, Bruce’s body _stores_ gamma radiation, Clint. In some ways, we even think he might _manufacture_ it. His skin shields the better part of it, but even a little cut...well, you saw! Isn’t that -”

Bruce shot him a look, frowned.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He turned his attention back to Clint, pointedly. “Isn’t that _interesting_ , Clint?”

Clint felt caught in the middle of something he didn’t understand, both men staring at him. He looked back down at the counter, which had dropped already to its starting point. 

“Amazing,” Clint murmured. Tony grinned hard and punched him lightly on the arm while Bruce groaned and turned away, going back to the board to mark a couple of things on their equation.

“So, when Bruce is hurt, or when his adrenaline spikes, that number gets higher and higher,” Tony continued, “until his body can’t contain it. And then, boom. Green Guy.”

Bruce looked over his shoulder at Tony, grimacing, then turned back to the board. “Well, that’s an oversimplification - there are environmental factors involved, potential barometric pressure considerations, other variables...but generally, yes, that’s what we’ve seen. Which brings us to the third thing we need to know.”

Bruce moved to another board before continuing. “So first: understood and dealt with - an anomaly, not likely to happen like _that_ again, but other similar anomalies could. Second: very much a work in progress, and there’s a lot of work to do yet.” Bruce was making a couple of notes on a new bit of strange signs and symbols now. “Which means number three is really important: _what can we do to protect everyone else in case it happens again_?”

Again, both men stopped and looked at Clint, and he suddenly felt uncomfortable under their scrutiny. “I - just wanted to know what happened back there.” He pointed in the vague direction of the street where he’d picked Bruce up a couple of nights ago.

“We’ll get there,” Tony chimed in, walking over and putting an arm around Clint’s shoulders. Clint maintained composure, but felt a touch uneasy. “Pay attention to the nice scientist.” Tony looked back to Bruce, whose lips were pushed together as he considered his next words.

At last, Bruce popped the lid back onto the marker he was using, set it aside. “We have two working hypotheses on number three, both of which we’ve tested in a controlled setting with significant success.

“The first: that the Other Guy won’t attack someone he knows as ally or friend, often even if provoked. We’ve tested this hypothesis in every way possible in a controlled setting with very promising results; in fact, nearly eight of ten -”

“Wait, hold it,” Clint interrupted, some of this conversation finally sinking in. He looked from Tony to Bruce and back again. “Are you telling me you’ve been running test scenarios with the _Hulk_?”

Tony blinked. “Well, yes. Not here, of course, but -”

Clint’s mouth fell open as he shook his head, composure failing for just a moment. “What, alone? Are you out of your _mind_?”

Tony’s eyes rolled from Clint to Bruce, brow furrowing. “Why do they say that?” he asked. “Why do they always say that?” Bruce shrugged his response, and Tony turned back to Clint. “Of _course_ by ourselves - minimizes risk, and really, we’re the only two necessary for the experiment to run. Him for - well, obvious reasons - and me for running the simulations and ensuring data collection.”

Clint turned to Bruce, watching him fiddle idly with his glasses, closing and opening them. “And you’re okay with this, doc?”

Bruce snorted, muttered under his breath. “Doc.” He looked up and met Clint’s unwavering gaze with hardened eyes. “I’m a willing participant, agent. Do you see me trying to run?” He motioned to the laboratory surrounding them, boards everywhere covered with his handwriting.

Clint flinched almost imperceptibly. Damnit, he sucked at this interpersonal shit. “Okay, sorry. It’s just...a hell of a thing to hear.”

“Guess we did sort of spring that on you, Clint,” Tony replied, voice apologetic. He patted the back of Clint’s shoulder. “We haven’t exactly been broadcasting these games to the talent scouts.”

“The second hypothesis,” Bruce continued as if there had been no interruption, “is that a warning system - a sensitive device that can detect the right kind of spikes in gamma radiation - could provide the potential target with enough warning that they could either (a) avoid the potential conflict completely by avoiding interaction, or (b) could get to safety before the danger becomes imminent.”

“Like a radiation warning card, but very _specially_ tuned,” Tony chimed in helpfully, and pointed to yet another board filled with signs and symbols, very few of which Clint could read. “We’ve been mapping the patterns of gamma emissions across various emotional and physical states, seeking a common algorithm we could use to predict any upcoming dangerous, unexpected outburst. We’re not there yet, but then again, this is a fairly new hypothesis, and we haven’t collected a lot of data yet.

“That’s where _you_ come in, Clint,” Tony finished, eyes glinting as they turned Clint’s direction. 

Once again, Clint felt pinned. “How?” He managed.

“First, by helping us collect data,” Bruce answered, setting down the marker he was using to turn to one of the displays. He pulled something up with a couple of gestures, grabbed a file, and threw it to the display next to Clint and Tony, where it stuck. Tony opened it deftly, flicking out several cards that he spread out at the bottom of the display. Clint had never felt more out of his element in his life.

“We’ve tried everything we can do on our own to collect data about gamma emissions in Bruce’s agitated states,” Tony told him, a bit quietly. Clint could see Bruce busying himself with his own display, his back to them as they talked. “Implants fail, skin patches get overwhelmed, normal detectors white out and take their data with them. We’ve even had him swallow shielded devices, but we can’t get the data from them fast enough, because the moment the Hulk comes, _all_ our equipment fails. Basically, we’re missing a key, critical second, maybe less - that moment where Bruce goes past the point of no return. And we can’t finish our key calculations without that.

“But...we think we’ve managed to put something together that could do the trick.” He looked up. “Hey, Bruce, can you bring it over here?”

Bruce grabbed something off a nearby table and brought it over, handing it to Tony before settling a hip on a table nearby. He let Tony explain, busying himself taking off his glasses, slipping them into a pocket.

Tony held the thing - just a small, cylindrical metal object, as far as Clint could tell - between his thumb and index finger, lifting it up for Clint to examine. “This little baby contains the most sensitive radiation detection device we could create, and combines it with,” he wiggled the thing somehow, and a panel slid open, “the most radiation-resistant material that exists. It’ll stay open for as long as it’s programmed to, then shut down and lock itself until it’s retrieved.”

Bruce piped in at that point, his fingers tapping idly on the tabletop. “It won’t survive being on or in me when the transformation happens, but...if it could be placed as close as possible at just the right time...”

Ah. Clint got it now. So much for an easy debrief and extraction. 

“Fury wouldn’t like these experiments,” Clint started, gving himself time to consider. “He’d say they’re too risky.”

“Fury can’t know,” Bruce responded, eyes going a little harder, and Clint was reminded that SHIELD once wanted the Hulk as a lab rat for themselves.

Tony’s expression was equally somber. “We’d like to keep this to ourselves until we at least have something to show for it.”

Clint nodded, still thinking. It wasn’t a simple situation, but it also wasn’t a deal-breaker; Fury didn’t know everything Clint did. Spy organizations tended to work like that. He let his thoughts wander a bit, considering outcomes, problems, threats, while Tony and Bruce waited, eyes carefully neutral.

A thought clicked, and Clint looked back up. “Wait - why focus research on this warning system?” He looked at Tony first. “You could be looking into ways to suppress or control the change, make the Hulk smarter or give him Banner’s brain, or...hell, even eliminate the Other Guy altogether.” He moved his gaze to Bruce, whose mouth and eyes were twitching, hands lifting to try and set them at ease. “Why _this_?”

Bruce pressed his fingers to his eyes - thumb on one, first two fingers on the other - and rubbed them slowly. Clint started to say something again, but Tony’s hand on his arm got his attention. He looked to Tony, who shook his head and mouthed _give them a minute_.

Them? Had Tony really mouthed _them_?

Before Clint could consider further, Bruce responded quietly. “Because, Clint, the Other Guy and I...we’ve both messed up. But we’ve both done good things, too. And both of us deserve...a chance.” He smiled wanly, not looking up at either of them.

All the other questions Clint had considered asking withered and fell away. What do you say to that?

“How many of those can you make?” Clint decided, and Bruce and Tony grinned at exactly the same time.


	4. Chapter 4

Clint had to admit, the setup was impressive.

The three of them had landed in an underground bunker in Utah just over an hour ago. Tony shooed away the jet after all the equipment had been unloaded, and he and Bruce had gone to work immediately. Clint offered to help, but they’d waved him away. “Take a walk, enjoy,” Tony had offered, hefting a box and heading inside the compound.

On the way, Tony had explained that this was once a nuclear research facility, but it had been shut down nearly twenty years ago, the labs remaining dormant and empty. The government was required to keep it up, though, and when Stark Enterprises made an offer, they were only too happy to turn it over to a private firm. That was three years ago. Tony had originally planned to use it for Iron Man feld trial, but, really, he had everything he needed in the tower.

It was the perfect place for Hulk research, though. They were under a mountain, surrounded by concrete buildings and steel-reinforced walls and doors, with miles between them and the outside world on all sides. It lay blank and empty, barren.

But not quiet. There was a hum to the place - the lights, the equipment, the gates sliding open and closed. Fans turned, blowing fresh air in from the outside, taking out the stale. Underneath all of it was a deep thrumming of generators, rising sometimes in pitch to vibrate the ground underneath their feet. Empty, yes; desolate, no. The place still felt alive, even if it didn’t look it.

Clint walked the outer perimeter, took his time. He noted all exits, every potential hindrance to them. He estimated how high above them the natural rock began again, examined where concrete gave way to gravel, watched how gates opened and closed and which ones did so automatically at his approach. He memorized the space, then moved toward the building in the center of the compound.

The middle building alone had been fully updated. The walls shone with metal, made all the more bright because they were surrounded on all sides by such flat concrete, and the roof was easily five stories above any of the surrounding structures. Tony and Bruce had disappeared in there some time ago, but Clint took time to walk all the way around, studying every wall, every door, every window, and every path that led here. He calculated distance from a number of vantage points automatically, counted the walking and running paces between this building and its neighbors. He had time to be thorough.

At last, the communicator in his ear came to life. “Showtime in 30, Clint.” Tony, calling him in. 

Clint knew the layout of the building already, had studied the blueprints with Tony and Bruce, making special note of the hidden ins and outs, the panic rooms, the locations where emergency calls could be made. There were even several escape pods that could launch through their own tunnels to the outside, set to fly automatically to the nearest airport for retrieval. Tony had been thorough, and he knew every corner intimately. He should, since he designed the place.

The Hulk lab.

Clint headed straight for the main laboratory floor, bypassing the great room he knew it looked down upon, and found Tony there, busily tapping away at half a dozen different displays. Just to his right was something like a hologram, a digital 3D display that was, at least for the moment, nothing but an empty box. Tony pulled items from the other displays as he seemed to complete them, laying them on top of that box, stretching them out into thin lines above it. He held a finger up to Clint as he approached, obviously concentrating hard on something, moving little electronic tendrils up and down carefully, a little bit in. A delicate operation, and Clint felt like a voyeur, a peeping Tom into this world he didn’t understand.

A minute passed before Tony nodded, picked the display up, and set it on top of the rest of the lines above the box, pulling little tendrils of energy down to connect a single one to each of them. He double checked, triple checked, then at last let his finger fall, his expression somehow both intense and pinched. “Okay, speak.”

“Where’s Bruce?” Clint asked immediately, glad to be freed of the spectator role.

Tony pointed down toward the great room, through the wall of screens that served as windows. They were shut off now, black. But Clint had passed it on its way up and knew the lights were on. “He always wants a few minutes alone...before. To prepare.”

Tony stepped away from his display to the other side of the lab, motioning for Clint to follow. “Here’s your hidey hole, ace. A bit tight, since I designed it...well, to be honest, carved it out of something that was already part of the room once we came up with this idea.” He paused to smile a bit, pat Clint on the shoulder. “Thanks for doing this. Matters.”

Perhaps Tony’s hand lingered a little long, and perhaps his throat worked a little. But the moment passed quickly, and Tony was suddenly opening the hatch.

“Ladder, hoist, tunnel. Not much to it, really. Just a big metal tube with a slit in the end. I think you know the rest.”

Clint nodded. “Think I do.” He latched the line on his harness to the hoist, in case he needed to be pulled back fast, and took the remote for it with him as he climbed in. The hatch closed, and tiny blue lights lit up on the walls and floor.

Clint dropped off the ladder down into a metal tunnel just tall and wide enough for him to stand in. He moved toward the end slowly, memorizing the wall with his hands, the floor with his feet. He found the places where toes could grab and launch him forward, where hands could find purchase if something grabbed him. He counted paces to them all, until he reached the end of the tube where there was an indentation deep enough for him to step into, perhaps eight feet in diameter, with a pole in the center. He slid into that space quietly, then found the button that lifted the cover from the arrow slit.

The room below him was absolutely devoid of substance. It was hard to tell where floor ended and wall began; everything was just a vast off-white, a little too bright, harsh on the eyes. It was huge, Clint knew; half the length of a football field, and easily as wide. From his vantage point, with the arrow slit open, he could see nearly every bit of the room, and what he couldn’t see would be projected at his feet, Tony had explained, by displays set on the floor. He couldn’t shoot anything under him, but at least he’d know it was there.

Clint took the time to ensure he knew where every wall came together with the floor, every corner. It would help him judge distance when needed.

To his left, around thirty feet away, Clint spotted Bruce, alone and small and bare-chested in that expanse of white. The man was pacing, nervous; every inch of his body showed it, even this far away. The sight reminded Clint of a hushed conversation from the day before when, as they packed, Bruce had asked what the experiment would be this time.

Tony had stopped in the middle of wrapping a piece of equipment to look up, find Bruce, meet his eyes. “You know I can’t tell you,” he had responded, quietly, and furrowed his brow when Bruce pursed his lips, looked away.

Tony had crossed the lab then, taking hold of Bruce’s shoulders with both hands, and the two had leaned in, talked quietly. “If you know, you’ll anticipate...” was all Clint heard, all he’d really wanted to, because by then both men’s expressions had fallen, and Bruce had gone nearly gray. They’d talked like that for several minutes before packing re-commenced, and Clint had his first niggling doubt about this job.

He was here now, though, so best to prepare. Clint tested the angles in the space he had, pulling back his bow again and again, aiming for a dozen spots all around the room, anywhere but Bruce himself. His pacing, the nervous pulling on his hair, was making Clint itchy to get this started.

“Hey Bruce,” Tony’s voice came over the intercom, and Bruce stopped pacing, looked up in very nearly the same way the Hulk had done when he’d heard Tony on the street. This voice, though, was very different than the one Tony had used that day; it was quiet, soothing. “You doing okay in there?”

Bruce wrung his hands and tightened his jaw, but nodded.

“Okay,” Tony answered, voice steady. “Just remember, I’ll be here, during and after.” 

A soft whir came from the ceiling. Bruce and Clint both looked up to watch as thin, wispy filaments floated their way down, one end remaining fixed on the ceiling, the other drifting to brush the floor. There were thousands of them, drifting in the air forced into the room, flashing colors as the light hit from half a dozen angles. Really, it was beautiful. Even from afar, Clint could see Bruce smile, just a little, brushing some of the filaments to make them rustle and sway.

Another whir and click, and a light drizzle also floated down, slowly, tiny drops hanging in the air. It was warm and dotted Bruce’s hair like dew. Bruce seemed to appreciate that, too, shaking his head and lifting his face toward it. 

A minute passed, then another, as Bruce moved first tentatively and then with less fear through the sea of filaments, glinting with dew and a thousand colors. Clint noticed Bruce’s shoulders relax, imagined he could hear a sigh of relief. Tony had told him that they didn’t always trigger the transformation, that they had to keep Bruce guessing, give him good and bad experiences to avoid a conditioned response. Bruce, it seemed, had decided this was one of the good times.

But he was wrong. As Bruce reached out to brush away a filament that had gotten stuck to his arm, it suddenly stiffened, and an electric arc shot a blue-white streak across Clint’s vision. Bruce hissed and jerked away. Another one brushing Bruce’s face did the same, and he stumbled, body stiff and jerky now, backing away.

Clint didn’t like this, didn’t like seeing Bruce ball hands into fists as he looked about warily, jerking as the filaments brushed him. An edge in the man’s eyes suggested he’d seen too many moments like this, etched into his muscles, his brain.

More and more filaments flashed randomly, both near and far. Each one crackled like tiny lightning, and Clint smelled ozone. Bruce was jerking and backing away over and over, hissing giving way to simple pants, his chest moving up and down too fast. Those eyes that Clint had seen calm and patient, so many times, were wide now, darting, and still he couldn’t avoid the shocks. There were too many of them.

Several pieces lit in a bundle against Bruce’s back, and his panting pitched up into a cry of pain as he jerked forward, nearly falling. Clint winced, watching the shocks grow to bunches of ten, thirty, a hundred filaments lighting all at once, hitting Bruce hard. Bruce stumbled and ran when he could, but the filaments were going off everywhere, and he couldn’t escape them, the pain they caused.

Clint gritted his teeth against the scene, holding his position by force of will alone, pushing down the emotions that wanted to pour out. He’d promised to do this for them, he reminded himself. He’d given his word. He knew they were going to make the Hulk come, should have expected this, but somehow he hadn’t.

Then a huge flash of tangled filaments lit right in front of Bruce, and he cried out, crumpling, falling to hands and knees. Clint blinked against the light-blindness and drew back his bow, knowing his shot couldn’t be far behind. He waited for just the right moment, watched as Bruce fought, trembling, pants giving way to grunts that deepened into something like a growl...

A fist hit the floor, louder and heavier than it should have been, and Clint took his shot. The arrow stuck in the ground, not an inch from Bruce’s left leg, exactly as planned.

Clint was done, but he stayed a moment longer, watching, transfixed. The transformation this time was nothing like in New York, when the Hulk seemed to almost slip into being. No, this time, the beast tore its way out of the man, muscles stretching and twisting and bursting out of him until there was no Bruce left, until the scream that had started in Bruce’s throat became a roar in the Hulk’s, and those huge green-white eyes rolled to look upward.

Clint broke away, running back to the lab, fingers finding every spot he could hold onto if the Hulk started tearing his tunnel apart. He could hear destruction behind him, great crashes, furious pounding and ripping. He got to the ladder just in time to watch the turret at the end of the tunnel crumple into the ceiling, then was out of the hatch and back in the lab and just about ready to rip something apart himself.


	5. Chapter 5

An arrow lifted Tony’s hair as it flew by, not even an inch from the back of his head. It buried itself deep in the concrete wall behind him, proof it was a powerful enough shot to have pierced his skull. He jerked his head around, set his jaw, and locked eyes with Clint, whose expression was carefully neutral but whose eyes burned through Tony, cold.

Tony glared right back, eyes hard. “You want to start a fight, Clint, then do it in two minutes and seventeen seconds, after we’ve collected all the data we need.” He pulled his eyes away and headed for another display.

A second arrow passed just in front of his chest, leaving a tiny hole in his shirt right at the center of the arc reactor, sending out a spark that struck home and traveled through Tony’s body with a sudden, sharp sting. He grunted and froze, twitching, but didn’t turn. “Two minutes, three seconds,” he growled through gritted teeth, and started moving again. That hurt, and he could tell without looking that Clint knew it, appreciated it. Tony tried to ignore it, reaching the second display and changing over to backups for two pieces of equipment the Hulk had torn apart.

A third arrow passed between Tony’s face and hands and stuck in the table beside the display, quivering, just inches away. Tony snarled, snatched hold of the arrow, ripped it out of the table and threw it on the floor. “Damnit Clint!” he shouted, shooting a look Clint’s way. That blank expression told him nothing, and the man wasn’t talking, so Tony jabbed a finger his direction. “I swear to god, if I lose one _millisecond_ of data, you little shit...” He trailed off, stepping sideways to another display, pulling up data tables to watch them fill, ensuring the equipment held. He’d figured Clint wouldn’t like what he saw in the Hulk lab, but hadn’t anticipated this violent a response. The sounds of destruction in the room beyond continued, the screens showing the Hulk tearing at walls, throwing around great pieces of the ceiling he’d nearly managed to cave in, roaring fury that rattled the floor.

One minute, forty-two seconds. Tony tried to ignore Clint’s presence, pretend he wasn’t there. Focus on the data. “Just a little longer, Big Guy,” Tony murmured to himself, tapping his fingers nervously on the edges of the display, eyes darting across the screen to ensure everything stayed in working order.

An arrow, soft-tipped, landed and locked with precision in the center of the display, directly over the input Tony was about to select, not even an inch from his finger, and Tony’s world went red. “You crazy fucking asshole,” he started, voice far quieter than he had expected, surprising even himself. He turned toward Clint slowly, watching the time on a nearby display. One minute, twenty-nine seconds. “What, so you think you’re making a point? That you’re showing me what I put Bruce through?” He started moving toward Clint, not even thinking about it, simply following the path his anger laid out before him. “That it? Show the heartless fucking billionaire what it feels like, so he _knows_ what he’s doing to Bruce, what he just did to you? Harass the guy trying to ensure the whole thing is _worth it_ while he’s doing his fucking _work?_ ” He was only steps away from Clint now, and angry enough that his hands kept trying to curl into fists. “Do you think I don’t already _fucking feel it?_ ” He spat those last three words, close enough now to Clint’s still-stoic face that droplets of spittle appeared on his cheeks.

Tony hadn’t meant to throw a punch, but he did. Clint deflected with a forearm, lips curling into a snarl, and the fight was on.

Clint was trained, but Tony was wild. He fought with fists and feet and teeth, coming back after every deflection, trying again. More than once, Clint threw him off-balance, shoved him to the ground, but Tony wriggled away or pounded Clint’s foot or kneed him mercilessly until Clint relented. Tony landed a few good blows, kicking Clint in the ribs hard enough to knock the wind out of him, rattling him with a solid hit on the back of the head. Clint had taken far worse, though, and knew this kind of furious flailing intimately; he deflected Tony’s hands and feet, used the man’s own momentum against him to throw him into walls and tables, though not at full force. Each time, Clint would be on top of Tony nearly the moment Tony landed, working to pin him, to stop the assault, meeting Tony’s wild eyes with his own stoic gaze. “Stop it,” he said, and again, until at last he completely pinned Tony, who still hurled profanities, to the floor.

Clint waited until Tony was panting and spent, insults all used up. “I won’t let you do that to him again,” Clint stated, all resolve. He snatched up an arm Tony managed to get free, pinned it with one knee. “I won’t.”

“You won’t have to,” Tony spat back. “Wouldn’t work a second time.”

That made Clint dig his knee a little deeper, and Tony hissed in pain. “Fuck, Clint, come on! I -”

A bell sounded from all displays at once, and Tony’s expression and voice changed almost immediately, suddenly plaintive, on the edge of desperate. “Let me up, Clint. Now, please, let me up.”

Clint blinked down at him, surprised by the sudden change, and apparently didn’t respond fast enough, because Tony bucked suddenly under him, trying to throw him off. “Goddamnit, Clint, _let me the fuck up_!”

Clint let Tony buck him off, going to one knee in a ready crouch that turned out to be unnecessary. Tony scrambled to his feet and bolted to the nearest display warning that the auto-deploy of the sedative had failed. He dragged a box on the screen open and pressed a button in the center. Below them a slow hiss started, and for a moment, the pounding and roaring doubled in volume. Soon, though, it slowed, and Tony turned his attention to the screens that let him see the experiment chamber. Clint turned as well, watching as the Hulk slowed, swayed a little on his feet, sat down, lolled to one side. Those great eyes closed, and hands went limp.

“He’s out,” Tony told Clint, eyes still burning with pent-up anger.

Clint was still all business. “For how long?”

Tony shrugged. “Until Bruce comes back.”

“I want to talk to him first, alone.” Clint crossed arms over his chest, turning to fully face Tony, expression as still and resolved as ever.

Tony stared back with eyes on the verge of hatred. “Be my fucking guest.”

*****

Something was wrong. Bruce woke up still surrounded by rubble, and Tony wasn’t there, and that meant something was wrong.

“Tony?” he called, and a figure shifted and stood a short distance away. Bruce’s eyes hadn’t managed to focus yet, but he could tell just by the outline that it wasn’t Tony. Weak, still shaken, he scrambled backward, shoving with his feet, scooting with his hands.

“Easy, easy,” a voice stated, familiar. “It’s okay, Bruce.” _Clint_ , Bruce thought, and stopped trying to get up and run as his memory started to return.

“Where’s Tony?” Bruce struggled to his feet, voice shaky, worried deeply by this change in routine. Tony wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.

The figure in front of him finally clarified, definitely Clint. “I asked him if I could talk to you first.”

“No,” Bruce shook his head, wobbling a bit with the motion. “No, Tony wouldn’t do that to me. We have a _pattern_. He understands that.” Bruce leaned against a big piece of something nearby to steady himself, shaking now.

Clint moved forward to help, but Bruce waved him away, his weary expression registering both fear and irritation now. “What did you do to him, Clint? Did you change your mind? Did you lock him up so you could come see me alone?”

Clint blinked, swallowed. He’d considered a dozen ways this conversation could go, more. This, though, hadn’t occurred to him - that Bruce would be angry over Clint’s intrusion, angry and afraid. He hadn’t prepared for it.

“We had a fight. I picked it. I insisted on talking to you first.”

“You fought. Great.” Never had Clint heard such a disdainful tone from Bruce, not even when talking about Loki. “Did you lock him up?”

Clint shook his head. “No.”

Bruce slumped a little, looking both relieved and upset, and put a shaky hand to his face. “Damnit...” he muttered between fingers, shaking his head, blinking fast.

Clint wanted to soothe that worry, so he hastened to add, “Bruce - we got the data.”

It worked; Bruce lifted his gaze, though he didn’t quite meet Clint’s eyes, and let his hand fall in his lap. “We got the data.” He licked his lips and nodded, looking at Clint this time. “We got it.”

Clint nodded, finding that edge of smile that appeared on Bruce’s face infectious.

Bruce clapped his hands together once, looking pleased. “That’s....better than I’d expected, Clint.” He pushed off the piece of rubble keeping him on his feet, and this time accepted the arm that Clint extended. “Tony must be in the lab parsing it, then. Let’s go there.”

Clint started to protest, but Bruce just waved a hand. “Don’t. I want to see what we got. I earned that much.” Clint saw a faint shiver go through the hand that held onto his arm, felt the fingers tighten, and wanted to ask every question: why he did this, why he let Tony do it, why the secrecy and pain and fear for less than a second’s worth of data. Why he’d asked Clint to participate, if Bruce believed he’d pull back at the last moment.

Before he could, though, Bruce fixed him with a gaze as weary and deep and needy as any he’d ever seen, completely raw, open to the core, and Clint just...couldn’t. He saw his intrusion into this moment through Bruce’s eyes, then, and understood the fear, the frustration, that the other man felt in finding himself alone with - yes, an ally, but for all that, still a relative stranger.

“Let’s get you to Tony, then,” Clint responded, and Bruce sighed in relief.

*****

In the lab, the two men greeted each other warmly, clasping hands, Tony’s free hand resting on Bruce’s shoulder. They said nothing, but stared at each other a long moment before Bruce collapsed into the nearest seat and Tony dragged a display over to him.

Together, they examined the data Clint’s arrow and the device attached had managed to procure, speaking a language full of coefficients and factorials that Clint couldn’t follow. Tony’s voice was excited, pitched high, fast; Bruce’s was weary, but hopeful. After nearly twenty minutes of hurried back and forth discussion and pointing and playing with the data, Bruce simply slumped in the chair, too exhausted to keep his eyes open any longer.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Tony responded, patting Bruce’s cheek lightly to force his eyes open just a bit. “Come on, let’s get you to your room.”

Tony got Bruce to his feet by slinging one of the man’s arms over his shoulder and lifting. Bruce dragged himself along, eyes barely open, yawning wide once before they were out of the lab and down the hall. Clint knew the room from the blueprints, fashioned after another they had in in the tower - super-reinforced and sealable, just in case Bruce slept poorly, had nightmares. Apparently, that happened often.

Tony was back in ten minutes; Clint had taken that time to study the panels of data, but could make little of them. He looked up as Tony entered, the seething gaze that met him ensuring Clint that Tony’s anger had not abated.

Clint met it steadily, silently, waiting. Tony would speak his piece soon enough, he knew. But not immediately; instead, Tony went back to work, skirting Clint to return to the displays, pulling out the data with his fingers, spreading and plotting it in the air before him to study from all directions.

The coffee pot dinged, and a robotic arm moved toward it, poured two cups. It served Tony first, who took it absently and sipped, then brought the second cup to a confused Clint.

“Uh - should I say thank you?” Clint asked, looking from the robot to Tony.

Tony didn’t look back as he responded. “Depends on whether you have manners, cupid.”

Clint smirked. “Thank you,” he said to the robot arm, which somehow managed to perk at that. He found a chair, sat, sipped.

Several minutes passed like that, Tony tapping louder and louder and faster on the screen, eyes taking in the details, but hardening nonetheless. At last, he couldn’t stand the silence and Clint’s calm presence, so he whirled to face him. “What you did here was stupid and dangerous.”

“I agree,” Clint replied calmly, settling his mug on a nearby table, all composure. “Though I would include what I did in _there_ as well.” He pointed toward the experiment room, meeting Tony’s gaze evenly.

“You knew what you were getting into, Clint. We didn’t lie to you about what was going to happen.”

“You weren’t as forthcoming as you could have been been, either -” Clint responded, and raised a hand as Tony started to protest, “- but, you’re right. I knew what I was getting into.”

Tony’s brow furrowed in confusion, though the anger kept his eyes hard. “Then why do it, Clint? Why agree to help, if you think this is such a bad idea?”

Clint considered his answer for a long moment, rolling over his reasons in his mind. He’d had many - a desire to help his teammates, curiosity, appreciation for a task that tested his skills. They were all surface reasons though; something deeper ran through them all, he knew, and he wasn’t sure if Tony and Bruce were ready to hear it.

Clint let out a soft sigh - interpersonal shit - and answered the question with another. “How many times have you and Bruce done...this?” He waved his arm around the room, gesturing to the experiment room below.

Tony counted quickly. “This would be eight actual transformations.”

Clint nodded. “And why call me in now?”

Tony looked irritated. “Because we need this data. We’d tried so many other ways to collect it that this just seemed...the next logical step.” He was going along with Clint, could see that Clint was trying to lead to something, but his patience was thin.

Clint could tell. “Bringing me in was the next option in the progression, then.”

Tony shook his head. “No, we had a couple before this, but - you were around, and seemed available, so -”

“- you took a shortcut.” Clint nodded, reaching for his coffee again. “Was there much argument between you two about whether you should bring me in?”

Tony fairly growled. “Damnit, Clint, you obviously have something to say. Just say it.”

Clint set his jaw a moment, but nodded. “Fine.” He turned cool eyes Tony’s way. “I think you asked me here because you both know that you needed an outside observer to tell you how insane this whole setup is.” He finished his coffee in one big gulp and sat down the cup, leaning back again. “God, I _hope_ you see that somewhere in there, at least.”

Tony’s eyes hardened even more. “What we’re doing is going to _help_ Bruce.”

Clint shook his head. “No, what you’re doing is isolating Bruce further, and you right along with him.” He looked Tony straight in the eyes. “Who else have you told about these experiments? Pepper? Anyone? And when was the last time either of you left the tower, except to fight some big nasty or come to one of these labs?”

Tony swallowed, jaw working, and the lack of answer was enough.

Clint nodded. “The fact that you told me first speaks fucking _volumes_ , Tony.” He stood and started toward the door.

“He _would_ talk to you, you know,” Tony called after him. “If you’d let him. If you treated him like a person sometimes instead of a threat.”

Clint paused, that one hitting home. He deserved it. Maybe they all did. But the truth, too, was important, and that’s what Clint gave Tony as he turned to give him one last look before leaving for his rooms:

“He _is_ a threat, Tony. And the quicker you and he get to accepting that, the quicker this torture can end.”


	6. Chapter 6

In his dream, Bruce fumed and seethed without fear, screaming fury all on his own. He tore trees out by their roots, smashed them into cars, punched holes in the ground, in structures. He picked up boulders and threw them far into the air, jumped over buildings to land with smashing feet, leave craters. People ran from him, screaming, and he liked that most, wanting to snatch some of them up in his huge white hands and toss them at the the others who gawked and pointed as he rampaged. Through it all, the Other Guy settled, resting his back on their tree, watching with careful eyes...

He awoke in a sweat, heart racing, the Other Guy close to the surface, hungry for release. Bruce swallowed him down, focused on slowing his breathing, lowering his heart rate. The Other Guy wasn’t happy about it, but he settled, growling, into the deep.

Three times in as many days, and it wasn’t enough. Bruce felt paper-thin, ready to tear. 

At the same time, though, he had to admit that he felt more complete than he had in a while. In all those years he’d been keeping the Hulk at bay, he’d felt fragmented, only a piece of himself. This he’d chalked up to being hounded, on the run, but it hadn’t changed even when people stopped coming for him, in the years in Calcutta and other places like it. He’d been the shell of Bruce Banner, trying to fill himself with good works that might shore up the empty spaces.

But it hadn’t worked; he’d despaired, more than once, and gave up more times than he could count. And as much as he’d hated being pulled out of that relative safety, as much as he railed against it in the helicarrier, it had been the best thing that happened to him in over a decade.

For a moment, a beautiful moment, he’d felt at home.

Of course, that broke apart, too, once the Other Guy nearly killed Tony. It didn’t matter that he’d been trying to _save_ Tony; the damage had been horrifying, even to himself, and the others had pulled away quickly, finding excuses not to come to the tower. Bruce couldn’t blame them; it had been a terrible time, and what followed very nearly took Bruce’s sanity, his life. Tony, though, had stayed with him - fought alongside him, trusting him to come out the other side. Bruce owed him for that, owed him more than he thought could be repaid.

_BANNER._

“I know,” Bruce said aloud, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. He didn’t like that last experiment any more than the Other Guy did; it hit too close to home, reminded him far too much of what it felt like to be chased, attacked from all sides, trapped. Even the memory of it had his heart picking up speed again, his breath shallow and shaky. He lifted a hand to his face, rubbed his eyes, pressed, and prepared to listen.

Bruce had begun talking to Other Guy in the wake of his mental break. It had taken him days to accept that the voice wasn’t going away, that it wasn’t his, though it was a part of him. Finding ways to listen without fear took time; there was so much rage in it, so much pain, going back far further than the gamma accident. The Other Guy’s existence had been nothing but hurt and hatred, until recently. Until New York, and the Avengers, and Tony.

Bruce settled his feet on the floor, hand over his eyes. It was easier to listen in the dark.

Their conversations were rarely words; the Other Guy was still fairly new to them, and wasn’t overly fond. Images and sensations were easier; the Other Guy sent them, and Bruce translated to thought. Then, whatever he missed or mistranslated would be replaced with something else, and he’d do it again until he got it right. This was their means of sharing, a subtle back and forth that wasn’t easy, but still provided a connection - one they both realized now that they’d needed since the beginning.

“Okay, Big Guy,” Bruce said, once his breathing had settled and his mind had cleared. “Let’s talk.”

The world closed in, and Bruce became aware of heat and sharpness, burning, choking. The memory smelled like burning plastic and other chemicals. He glimpsed flames behind glass that looked ready to buckle or explode, and he bit back panic. _Not real_ , he reminded himself. _Not real_.

_REAL_ , Hulk answered. _HAPPENS_.

“When?” Bruce asked out loud. “Long past? Short? Now?” 

He felt a mental shrug in response. _IS. HULK THERE._

Bruce let go of worry, reminding himself that the Other Guy didn’t, couldn’t, see time in the same way he did. Hulk didn’t have a timeline, only moments of existence, precise and confined and usually violent.

Okay, so, this happened. Bruce tried to unpack it, speaking aloud without realizing it. “Danger. Pain. Burning.” A shift inside him on the last word, and he latched on. “Burning - bad?”

_BAD. GOOD. YES._

Bruce took a deep breath, accepting the ambiguity. He’d heard it before, knew it meant there was more to understand. He forced himself to examine the memory more thoroughly.

The flames grew, spread by a sagging electrical wire swinging from the ceiling that sparked every time it came into contact with metal. And there was a lot of metal - old lab machines, the kinds with dials and printouts instead of displays, sparking and beginning to melt. He backed away from that just as an old display case buckled and shattered in the heat, glass shards flying, several piercing his upraised arm.

Bruce twisted and hissed with the memory of pain, caught a glimpse of an old metal and wood desk, a tattered leather chair tucked under it. He knew this place. _His_ place.

“The abandoned lab under Woton?” Bruce asked aloud, voice choked with the memory of smoke. “It burned? When?”

_BURNS. BREAKS._

“I don’t remember -”

_BANNER NOT THERE. HULK THERE. HULK_ REMEMBERS.

Bruce hadn’t been back since the accident, so that meant...something awful had happened there. Something he hadn’t been able to face.

Before the accident. Before the Hulk.

Bruce’s eyes opened, and he scrambled for pen and paper, the memory tumbling out in a flood. He didn’t know why yet, but he had to capture it all - every detail, every sensation. The Hulk didn’t share if it didn’t matter.

*****

Bruce’s room was just off the main hall, and Clint found his feet turning that direction rather than continuing to his own rooms. And why not? He hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk to Bruce earlier; maybe the man would be more receptive after some rest.

The observation window in the door was level with Clint’s head, and Clint wondered idly how strong the glass was as he looked through into the room beyond. It was dim inside, but he could see Bruce sitting up already; short nap. His legs were dangling off the side of the bed, swinging back and forth absently. His lips moved, then head tilted; talking to himself, Clint thought. 

A sudden motion on Bruce’s part - toward an end table, throwing open a drawer - reminded Clint what he was doing: eavesdropping, watching Bruce through a little window like he was a patient or a prisoner. He fought the desire to find something to cover the window, forced his eyes away as Bruce pulled out pen and paper and started writing. He paced back to the main hall and rested a shoulder against the wall, taking some time - for Bruce to finish whatever he was doing, and for Clint to shake off the memories of similar rooms, wailing or seething prisoners held inside. 

A full five minutes passed before Clint strode back down the hall, deliberately making noise in case it carried, and knocked on Bruce’s door. A long moment passed before Bruce’s face appeared in the window, before locks disengaged and the heavy steel door swung open. The two men, very nearly the same height, simply stared at one another for a long moment, saying nothing. 

Eventually, Bruce moved out of the doorway, motioned Clint inside, deliberately left the door open behind them. He gestured to a table and chairs in the center of the room, where’d he’d obviously been sitting and writing. The moleskin sat open to a page filled with words, pen sitting on top.

Clint sat and watched as Bruce went to the kitchenette and pulled out two mugs. He poured hot water from an electric kettle into them, picked them up by the handles with one hand, and snatched up a box of teas with another. He sat everything down on the table and pushed a mug in Clint’s direction, all without words.

“Thanks,” Clint said, breaking the silence. He pulled the mug in, wrapped his hands around it. The bunker was cold.

Bruce nodded, selected a tea, and set it steeping. He played with the tea bag, lifting and dropping it, splashing a little of the water over the edge.

Clint wasn’t accustomed to being the one to break silences, and he wasn’t good at small talk. So, instead of trying to lead into it, he simply let loose his question as he reached for the teas. “Why do you do this?”

Bruce kept dipping the tea bag, watching it instead of looking up. “Tony’s the first person who’s been willing to work with me - who wasn’t some government spy or plant - in over a decade.” Bruce’s voice was flat, resigned. “Why _wouldn’t_ I work with him?”

“Because it’s _torture_ , Bruce. I can see it, in your response, your reactions - hell, in your face now.” Bruce was wincing, just a little, as he set aside the tea bag, picked up his mug. Clint continued. “You hate it.”

“No more than I hate doing nothing.” Bruce blew on the tea, took a sip, remained emotionless. It irritated Clint.

“Really?” Clint continued, his voice carrying enough irritation for the both of them. “All things considered, Banner, I think you appeared more put together before you joined us and moved into the tower. This doesn’t seem to be helping you.”

That got Bruce’s attention. His eyes flashed as they rose to meet Clint’s. “And you’d know that - how? Because you’re around us so very often? Drop by the tower for chats? Spied on my wreck of a life before Agent Romanov came and snatched me away from it?” It was Clint who winced away a bit now, something that Bruce seemed to enjoy. He leaned forward across the table, pressing, frustration apparent in his voice. “I’m well aware that the time in my life before you lot has passed, Clint. I gave up on the lie that I’m free a while ago, because I know full well you’d drag me back if you needed the Other Guy.”

Clint tried to say something, but Bruce’s hand that wasn’t holding a mug curled into a fist. That silenced Clint, bringing a cold smile to Bruce’s face. “Good. I hate platitudes.”

Bruce sipped his tea. Clint let his sit, and the silence stretched again.

Bruce was right, Clint knew; no matter where he went, SHIELD would collect Bruce if they needed the Hulk. These days, something seemed to need smashing about once a month, in fact, and despite Bruce’s earlier protests that the Green Guy was only available for world-shattering stuff, he’d made the Hulk available every time the team asked, without argument or complaint. He was playing along, Clint realized, not rocking the boat - not giving them any reason to think he was resisting. That realization left Clint feeling dirty.

Bruce broke the silence this time, rolling his now-empty mug between his hands. “So, you’ve seen my SHIELD file.” It was a statement, not a question, but Clint nodded anyway. Bruce nodded back, eyes on the mug. “What’s in it?”

Clint considered carefully before responding, and Bruce seemed infinitely patient. “The basics,” Clint responded finally, watching Bruce for a reaction. “Mother died when you were young; raised by relatives. College at 15, grad school at 18, Los Alamos at 23.” Bruce set his mug down, blinked hard, and Clint continued. “The accident, of course, but also - awards in abundance for your main and side work on gamma radiation. You were testing methods to target cancer cells there near the end, weren’t you?”

Bruce glanced up at that, smiled wanly. He nodded, and Clint hated that bruised look around Bruce’s eyes.

“You did good work and left good notes. Other researchers picked up what you did and have made good progress, you know. Your efforts helped.”

“Yeah,” Bruce murmured, curling his hands together, thumbs rubbing against one another. His eyes went distant. “Yeah.”

A few seconds passed, Clint finally taking a sip of tea before Bruce focused on him again. “SHIELD helped hunt the Other Guy, right? At the beginning?”

Clint swallowed a mouthful of too-hot liquid, winced. “Yes,” he answered simply, meeting that gaze again. “We did.”

Bruce seemed to appreciate that, softened a little. “Right. So...do you know...were they looking at me in any way _before_ my accident?”

The question surprised Clint, a rarity. He went through the dossier on Bruce Banner in his mind, considering. Nothing he saw hinted one way or the other. “I - really don’t know.”

Bruce sighed, looked a little disappointed as he rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I believe you,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair, his free hand closing the moleskin with the pen still inside.

Clint considered, wondering where this line of questioning came from. “Bruce - if you think there’s something in SHIELD’s files that might help you with what you’re doing now -”

“I don’t,” Bruce interrupted, waving the hand that had been sitting over his eyes, looking back at Clint, studying him as intently as Clint had ever studied Bruce. “So just don’t go digging, okay?”

Clint let himself be scrutinized, kept his face carefully stoic. “Okay,” he responded, voice equally emotionless.

Bruce seemed satisfied. He stood, taking his mug to the sink, settling it there. “Finish your tea,” he said with his back to Clint. He headed to the door, picking up a discarded shirt on the way and pulling it over his head. “I’ve got work to do.”

*****

“That was a short nap.” Tony recognized the footsteps, didn’t have to turn away from the display he was currently manipulating. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” came the simple reply as Bruce crossed the lab.

Tony kept at his work, setting a new calculation running. “Turkey pastrami and butter lettuce on rye, bottom shelf. We’re out of juice, but there are a couple of beers in there.” Tony turned toward the fridge. “Might help you...” He drifted off, not finding Bruce where he expected him to be. “Uh, Bruce?”

“Over here,” Bruce called from the old main computer console, waving a hand. Tony raised an eyebrow as his eyes found Bruce, an unstated question that Bruce answered soon enough. “Wasn’t hunger this time. The Other Guy wanted to talk.”

Tony’s other eyebrow went up, and he headed toward Bruce, who was busy pulling up something on a far more traditional screen than the displays that were standard elsewhere in the lab. The back of the monitor was to Tony, so he couldn’t see what Bruce was working on. “Oh? He okay?”

Bruce nodded, distracted by whatever he was doing, and Tony had to clear his throat to get Bruce to look up. “Oh. Sorry, right. He’s fine; still understands the need for the work. But...”

He trailed off as Tony reached him, pulling in his bottom lip to chew it absently, typing once more. Tony had to ahem again, causing Bruce to start, his cheeks coloring a bit. 

“So...” Tony started, leaning against the console, positioning himself between Bruce and the keyboard with practiced precision. “What did the Big Guy say, then?”

Bruce pulled a hand through his hair, letting it linger a moment, eyes far away. “Tony, did your father ever work with my father?” He took a step back, settling against a table opposite Tony, fingers falling to drum idly on the metal surface.

Tony blinked, surprised, but kept the conversation going. “You know he did, on the super-soldier serum.”

Bruce shook his head, raising one hand to rub a thumb idly across his lips. “No, no - they never worked _directly_ with one another on that - just shared notes. I don’t even know if they actually met then.” Again, Bruce chewed his bottom lip, distant, distracted.

Tony watched a moment, trying to make sense of the situation. He glanced at the monitor, furrowed his brow. “You’re trying to access my father’s personal data?”

Bruce’s eyes snapped into focus, found Tony’s. A thumb pressed to his lips, he simply nodded once.

Tony’s brow only furrowed more. “Why? And why right now? Shouldn’t you be sleeping, eating...looking at our data? Something?”

Bruce’s lips pursed as he ran his tongue across them thoughtfully. “The Other Guy...he showed me something, Tony. And I’m trying to figure out what it is. Your dad’s stuff might hold...I don’t know. Clues.” Tony opened his mouth to speak, but Bruce raised a hand and continued quickly. “Don’t ask. I’m not ready to share...yet. Please don’t pry.”

Tony closed his mouth, but his eyes shone, hard and piercing. Bruce nodded back, dropped his own gaze. “Thank you.” He lifted to move back to the terminal, stopping a forearm’s length away from Tony, eyes on the monitor. “Just...let me figure out what it is first. Then I’ll share. Okay?” He looked up with that last word, eyes open, sincere.

Tony’s expression softened at that. “Fine,” he responded quietly. “Okay.” But instead of stepping away, he turned, started typing himself. Bruce watched the password screen disappear, a welcome screen replacing it.

Tony’s smile was all teeth as he turned back. “Broke that when I was fifteen,” he announced, eyes glinting. “All yours.” He clapped Bruce on the shoulder. “Let me know if you find anything of interest,” then stepped out of the way for Bruce, who just shook his head and chuckled as he pulled up a seat and dove in.


	7. Chapter 7

Clint had to prod both scientists out of their work to get them to acknowledge the arrival of the jet. And then again, an hour later, when neither had managed yet to leave the lab.

Another hour later, and the jet was finally packed, Tony and Bruce on board. Bruce slumped in his chair almost immediately, asleep before the plane managed to exit the bunker. Tony and Clint watched each other, neither attempting to hide it.

When they were well in the air and leveling off, Tony moved to the bar. “Want a drink?” He waved a bottle of bourbon in Clint’s direction. “I’m having one.”

“No ice,” Clint replied, bland as ever. Tony smiled a bit and poured.

They were both two drinks in, Bruce snoring lightly in the background, before Clint broke the silence. “I don’t feel the need to tell the others,” he began, frowning slightly.

Tony smirked a bit at that as he topped off his drink. “I suppose you’d like to see me breathe a sigh of relief at that.” He mimicked one, letting his chest rise and fall dramatically, then chuckled, shaking his head, taking a sip. 

Clint blinked once, settled back in his chair. “You don’t care if the others know?”

Tony shrugged, sweeping his drink off the bar and flopping back into his chair. “I care,” he said, setting down the drink, licking the bourbon off his fingers where it sloshed over. “But I’m not fool enough to think I can control it. If you tell, you tell, and we’ll deal with it.” He reached for his drink again, raised it as if in toast before taking a hefty swig.

Bruce stirred and shifted, and both Tony and Clint looked that direction automatically. The man’s eyes didn’t open, though, and he was soon snoring again.

Clint pondered, eyes on Bruce as he tapped his near-empty glass lightly against the edge of the table. “He hates it,” he finally stated, standing, moving toward the bar.

“I know,” Tony replied, eyes still on Bruce - intense, a little pained. He dropped his gaze and scratched the space between his eyebrows. “Can’t say I’m overly fond myself.”

Clint huffed, smiling just a bit. “You don’t appreciate the imaginative experiments you conjure up for him?” Much more could be said, but Clint busied himself, standing up to examine the liquor available at the bar.

A silence followed, long enough for Clint to select a different bottle, pour a small glass before Tony spoke, quiet. “It’s good work, sure,” he answered, finishing off the rather large drink he’d poured earlier. “But there’s a solid line between appreciation of the scientific process and appreciation of the outcome.” He stood, snatching the bottle now, bringing it back to his seat to fill his glass again.

Clint raised eyebrows, took a sip of what he poured. “You don’t like what you’re working toward?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t like what getting there is doing to him.” He motioned toward Bruce, still asleep in his chair. “He’s been through enough already.”

“Haven’t we all,” Clint added, moving back to his chair. 

Tony shook his head. “Not like him.” He swallowed a gulp of bourbon, eyes lingering on Bruce, and the man stirred as if he could feel the scrutiny.

Clint didn’t disagree, but he paused as Bruce’s eyes fluttered partway open, searched the room. They locked on Tony, and Bruce smiled, ever so slightly. Tony smiled in return, reached across the aisle and touched Bruce’s arm for a moment. Just in case he actually woke, Clint returned to the bar, poured another glass of bourbon. But Bruce didn’t wake; his eyelids closed slowly, and Tony let his hand drop.

“Eight times?” Cliint’s question was quiet, carefully not accusatory.

Tony’s eyes went distant. “More like eighteen. It’s not always bad, though - can’t risk the response becoming conditioned. Could skew the data.” He took a sip of his drink, expression bitter. “I try to create...similarities. Enough, but not too much.” He didn’t seem happy about it.

Clint nodded, swirling his drink with a practiced hand. “So - these detectors you’re trying to build. You really think they’ll help?”

Tony motioned Bruce’s direction. “More to the point, he does. And that’s what matters.” He clinked his glass to the bottle now sitting next to his elbow, eyes a bit distant. “I’d do it a hundred times more if it really would,” he muttered, tapping his lips with a knuckle. 

Clint watched Tony think, watched as the man’s eyes went hard and thoughtful, intense. He wasn’t surprised to see Tony pull a pocket-sized display out of his pocket and ask Jarvis to provide him with the latest test data, knew their conversation was over. 

So Clint’s eyes went to Bruce, studying him as he slept - or, rather, dozed fitfully. The man’s eyes opened and closed several times, and his body twitched every couple of minutes or so. It didn’t look restful; Clint wondered what nightmares spread themselves out under those eyelids. SHIELD alone could cite two dozen instances of facing and fighting the Hulk, and the military probably had twice as many more. There were guns and explosions aplenty for the man to remember, relive. Clint didn’t appreciate his part in any of it.

Bruce snorted suddenly, and his eyes flew open. He sat upright, gripping the armrests of his chair, eyes turning around the room, unseeing.

“Hey, hey...” Clint managed, reaching across the aisle automatically. He touched Bruce’s arm, found it shivering.

“Grab his hands,” Tony stated without looking up from his screen. “Hard. Let him know someone’s there. It helps.”

Clint wasn’t one to hesitate. He gripped Bruce’s hands tightly, trying hard to wrap fingers around both of them, and squeezed tight. A moment passed before Bruce responded, hands uncurling to press down on the armrest. His body bucked once, pulled deep into his seat, as his face pinched and pulled away. 

A memory of pain. Clint knew it, all too well, recognized the symptoms when Bruce’s body started trembling all over and his eyes closed again, his hands relaxing and letting go.

“He needs help,” Clint stated quietly, eyes not leaving Bruce as the trembling subsided again into fitful sleep. “A hand holding won’t -”

“ _You_ want to try and be his therapist?” Tony responded, looking up from his display to turn toward Bruce and study him a moment. “Medication won’t touch him - his metabolism’s like no one else’s on the planet, so it’s dangerous to even _try_. And talk therapy...well, there’s more than a little danger involved in trying to get Bruce to open up to his feelings.” He shook his head, turning back to the display. “I’m helping the only way I know how. You got any better ideas?”

Clint considered that, and for the moment, didn’t. He drank in silence for the rest of the flight as Tony reviewed the last experiment, as Bruce twitched and started and dozed.


	8. Chapter 8

A week passed, and Clint didn’t leave. He appeared at least once a day in the same room as Bruce, hovering at the perimeter, observing, silent. Sometimes he watched Tony and Bruce work for hours; other times, he’d appear while Bruce was pouring coffee or ordering food, staying only a moment. But it happened every day, sometimes more than once, and Bruce was starting to chafe under that scrutiny.

“Can’t you just _tell_ him to leave?” Bruce slumped into one of the chairs that faced the penthouse windows without noticing the view, frowning and surly. “Or at least to leave me alone?”

“I’m pretty sure you could handle that last one all on your own,” Tony responded, throwing a handful of almonds into his mouth. He chewed a moment, spoke again while his mouth was still full. “‘sides, he’s helping.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow and looked over his shoulder at Tony. “Helping.”

“He is!” Tony washed down the almonds with a sip of soda, heading toward a seat himself. “Let’s count the ways. One: he’s running defense with Fury.”

Bruce stared at Tony pointedly, eyes following the man to his seat. Tony, for his part, ignored the glare, settled into his chair with an audible sigh, took a moment to appreciate the sunset. 

Bruce finally took the bait. “Okay, fine - _how_ is he running defense, Tony?”

Tony grinned wide. “You may not realize this, Bruce, but Fury’s checked in on you at least twice a week pretty much since you came to the tower. Calls mostly, but a couple of visits, too. Pepper’s fielded some of the questions, but most came to me - or, they did.” Tony shrugged, finishing off his soda. “I didn’t want to bother you with it.”

Bruce pressed his lips together a moment, blinked. He’d figured there had been check-ins, but had no idea they were so frequent. “Uh...thanks?”

Tony waved a hand dismissively. “No problem. Not like he ever asked any detailed questions - just “is he still there” and “how’s he doing, any plans for leaving,” that kind of thing.” He turned away from the sunset, taking in Bruce’s bemused expression with a hint of a smile. “Since Clint’s been here, though - not a single call or question.” 

Bruce’s hands twined together as he dropped his eyes. He was quiet long enough that Tony started to grow concerned. And sure, he got it - he’d felt some of that trepidation himself at having _the_ spy send _a_ superspy into their Tower after them. But that’s why Tony took precautions, after all. “Hey look, I recorded the calls...” Tony used to fill the silence, “...well, I record _all_ of my calls, but I kept these. You can listen to them, if -”

Bruce shook his head, raised a hand. “No, no. It’s fine; good, even.” He looked back up, smiled a little in Tony’s direction. “I...appreciate not having to explain myself to Fury every few days.” Tony’s expression brightened a bit, and Bruce couldn’t help but follow suit, at least momentarily.

‘But...” Bruce continued, eyes going serious again, “If Clint’s telling Fury what we’re doing...”

Tony let Bruce trail off, considering on his own for a short moment before responding. “I don’t think he has,” he replied, pushing himself out of his seat to move back to the bar, snag another handful of almonds. He popped one into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully a moment, Bruce keeping his silence. Tony shook his head as he swallowed, “No, I really don’t think so.”

“Why’s that?” Bruce responded, standing up himself, holding out a hand as he walked over. 

Tony dropped a few almonds into the man’s palm before popping another into his mouth. “Because,” he noted between chews, “we talked, while you were recuperating.”

“Oh, come on. He hated the whole thing; it was obvious. Why _wouldn’t_ he want everyone to know, create pressure to shut us down?”

Tony swallowed as he considered how to answer. At last, he shook his head. “I don’t know, really. But he told me on the plane that he didn’t feel the need to tell the others, and I don’t think he’d lie about something like that.” The edges of Tony’s lips curled into a smile. “And besides, Jarvis would have told me if he did.”

Bruce scooped up a handful of almonds from the bowl on the bar for himself, smirking. “Of course. You have all transmissions from the tower intercepted.”

“Better,” Tony replied, eyes glinting. “I tapped Fury’s communicators.” An ahem from a nearby display caused him to quickly correct, “with Jarvis’ help, of course.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis replied, perhaps a bit terse. “Dr. Banner, I can assure you that Mr. Barton has not relayed any news of your work to Mr. Fury or anyone else on the Avengers team, at least as far as I have been able to detect. And rest assured, I am excellent at detecting such things.”

Bruce smiled at that, let out a brief chuckle. “I have no doubt, Jarvis. No doubt at all.”

“Speaking of,” Tony added, voice directed to both Bruce and Jarvis. “How’s the research coming? Any leads on that episode the Big Guy shared?”

“I’ve managed to locate local news reports of a gas leak and explosion on the campus, sir,” Jarvis answered, a screen automatically coming to life. “But the coverage was surprisingly minimal.”

Bruce nodded agreement, pulling up the story and enlarging it. “Happened my last summer in grad school when I was finishing up my dissertation work, before I went to work at Los Alamos. ‘Explosion Caused by Gas Leak.’ There’s three paragraphs in the school newspaper, and one in the police reports section of the town paper. That’s it. No news coverage, no blog posts, no mention otherwise. And nothing about me.”

Tony read over the article quickly. “No mention of the abandoned lab, either.”

Bruce shook his head. “Nope.”

“And you really can’t remember _anything_ happening there?” 

Bruce pressed his lips together, shrugged. “Beyond what the Other Guy showed me, no. I remember getting too busy to find time to visit, but...” He shrugged. “I still remember it as a place of peace. A respite.”

Tony rubbed his chin. “And it wasn’t just an accident. You’re sure.”

Bruce shrugged again. “Not completely, but - it doesn’t _feel_ like an accident. Something about it feels...deliberate. An attack. Maybe on me, maybe on the lab itself...I don’t know.” He ran fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp. “I don’t know.”

“There may yet be some information about the lab in your father’s personal files, sir,” Jarvis broke in, “but I’m afraid that if it is, it’s either encrypted or encoded, and progress is slow.”

“Yeah, well, Dad was fond of his secret projects,” Tony murmured, “but if he funded that lab, we’ll have information on it somewhere.”

“He had something to do with it, I’m sure,” Bruce replied. “Half the empty files in those old cabinets had Stark’s logo on them.”

“Perhaps if you could remember the labels on some of those files, Dr. Banner -”

Bruce nodded, shutting off the screen in front of him. “I’ll try, Jarvis. Give me a bit.”

After that, Bruce changed the subject, reminding Tony that he’d intended to count the ways in which Clint was helping. Tony rattled off a litany - his regular reminders of meal time, his helpful target practice with Tony, the little bit of hand-to-hand work he’d transferred to them both. Jarvis ordered them dinner without asking what they wanted, and they ate the Indian food delivered to the penthouse table, barely noticing what it was as the conversation drifted from Clint to their experiments to new ideas, debates, theories. It was hours past dark, past midnight, before they paused long enough to notice the time, Tony noting idly that his 8 am would be pissed when he didn’t show. It took them an hour more to make it to goodnights, and twenty minutes beyond that for Bruce to stand, stretch, and head to his own rooms, forgetting about Barton’s presence for the moment.


	9. Chapter 9

Bruce dreamed of fire.

More specifically, Bruce dreamed of being surrounded by it on all sides, enveloped in the heat of it as he crouched over something precious and small and wriggling. He could feel the flames getting closer, heat blistering his skin, blackening it. He wanted to scream, but the pain closed his throat, the smoke thickening the air so much it couldn’t make it into his lungs.

He was burning, choking, dying, and he wanted to cry for help - not for himself, but for little furry bundle he protected, to keep it safe. But he knew no one was around, no one who would help, at least. In the next room, a monster roared fury, screaming about how everyone else gets to fuck things up, and how it’s always left to him to _fix it_ \- to repair the damned stove, fix the fucking wires, even burn down the goddamned shed when the kid ruined it with his stupid hidden pets...

What was under him shifted, moved. He had to protect it. _Had_ to. The feeling bled out of him, pulled by the pain and the fear and the need to keep it safe, and the Other Guy rose from the deep, a roar full of need and fury rising in Bruce’s mind, threatening to take over.

*****

Tony was out of bed and moving before Jarvis could protest and send the suit after him. It had been a long time since Bruce had a nightmare bad enough to trigger the motion alarm they’d set up in his suite, but the last time, it had cost them two floors and half a dozen pieces of equipment that hadn’t been easy to replace.

And, more importantly, Bruce had been nearly unable to function for two days afterward, haunted by the images the nightmare had conjured. 

Tony had been practicing talking the Other Guy down, and they’d developed a rapport of sorts. It wasn’t like the Hulk just did what Tony asked, but he’d certainly...mellowed around him. Didn’t smash as much. Learned to smash the things that were easier to replace, that didn’t die under his fists or feet. So Tony had hope. Still, he breathed a sigh of relief when the suit caught up, wrapped itself around him as he hit Bruce’s floor.

 _Hold on, Bruce_ , he thought as he clanked to a halt outside Bruce’s suite. “Jarvis, is he -”

“Lost in the dream, sir, and fighting.” The door to the suite opened. “If your aim is to stop him, I think you should hurry.”

Tony didn’t hesitate. With thrusters, he was at Bruce’s bedside in seconds.

Bruce’s body was tangled in the sheets, which had been tossed and twisted. His hands balled into the top sheet, the force of his arms pulling against it already starting to tear the fabric. His eyes were shut tight, and Tony could see them moving madly underneath his lids as the man’s body twitched and shook, starting to grow. The numbers on the gamma detector Tony had rigged into his suit soared.

“Oh, no. No, no, Bruce,” Tony started, triggering the order to peel back his gloves. They parted and retracted, and Tony reached out with bare hands to grab Bruce’s shoulders hard, fingers curling as they connected. “Bruce, wake up, stay with me.”

Bruce’s eyes flew open at the touch, green already, tinged with the white that bled through when there was no turning back. His eyes were unfocused, lost, and his body bucked as if in pain. He was already beyond words, grunting, jerking suddenly away as the sheet gave and tore. Tony was pulled off-balance, not expecting Bruce to already be so strong.

“Wake up, Bruce!” Tony’s voice became more insistent as he pulled Bruce back up to sitting position, wrapped his hands around the man’s upper arms and shook. Bruce twitched and trembled, eyes rolling around the room, and Tony could tell he was seeing something else entirely, something that hurt, something that made him mad.

“No you don’t, Bruce - come on.” Tony gritted his teeth as he spoke, fingers digging into Bruce’s arms hard enough to get a reaction. Good - a start. He shook the man again. “Wake up!”

Bruce’s eyes fluttered a moment, then suddenly focused. He blinked several times, body still trembling, and his eyes were just a little more human when they turned Tony’s direction. Tony lifted the face shield immediately, meeting the fight in those eyes. “That’s it, Bruce. Stay with me.”

Bruce’s body was all shudders, hands twitching and clenching, jaw clamped tight. He shook his head, “Can’t. _Can’t._ ” Muscles clenched under Tony’s hands, tightened as Bruce’s body convulsed. The man let out a moan that was part pain, part need, and tried to pull away.

But Tony followed as Bruce rolled off the bed and fell to the floor. His hands remain latched to Bruce’s upper arms even as they twisted and grew, as Bruce slammed his own hands to the floor heavily enough to dent the painted concrete. “It was a dream, Big Guy,” Tony murmured, grip softening to stroke Bruce’s shoulders in what he hoped was a soothing fashion. “Bruce is okay. He’s in the tower. He’s safe.”

“Safe,” Bruce panted, pressing hands flat against the floor, forcing his fingers wide. “Safe, safe...” he repeated the mantra, his breath deepening slowly, eyes closing in relief as the trembling in his body slowed, calmed. Carefully, he opened eyes bleeding from green back into brown and lifted his hands from the ground to turn Tony’s direction.

But he found Clint first, standing in the doorway, watching in silence, and something inside gave.

Images suddenly flooded up from the depths with the Other Guy, fast and overwhelming, tinged with anger. Clint’s eyes, peeking through a tiny hole, a flash of metal pointed his way. Clint walking toward him through the rubble, having shoved Tony aside, trying to take the man’s place. Talking to him about the experiments, as if he understood, as if he cared, intervening just when Hulk was trying to tell him something important, just when it should have been Tony in the room with him, Tony who cared, and Clint who just seemed to _get in the way..._

 _MOVE, BANNER_ , the voice came from inside, and for a moment, _god_ , Bruce wanted to - step out of the way, unleash the beast, let him take control and tear that stupid man apart so he’d leave them alone. He fell back to his knees as the Other Guy howled to be let loose and wreak that destruction, both of them fighting hard, both knowing Bruce wouldn’t win this time.

Tony saw and took a step toward him, but Bruce shook his head frantically, motioned back to where Clint stood. Tony looked that direction, and his eyes hardened as well. 

“Absolute _shit_ timing, cupid,” Tony shot Clint’s direction, shaking his head. He set off thrusters, snagging Clint as he flew by, his screaming instincts making him all-too aware that the Hulk was already emerging. They were in the hallway before the beast could roar, before the first sounds of destruction began. 

Tony set Clint back on his feet a few hundred feet down the hallway. “He was fine before he saw you,” he nearly growled. “I’d recommend you run.”

For once, Clint wasn’t nonchalant; he was on edge, eyes darting wildly back down the hall. Tony appreciated that Clint had this same instinctive reaction to the transformation - a primal fear that left a person reeling, wanting to run, to hide. But Clint, like Tony, wasn’t the kind to let instinct take him over; his jaw set after a moment, and he settled in his stance, resolved. Tony had seen the look before, knew better than to try and argue.

“Fine,” Tony responded, though Clint hadn’t said anything. “But stay here, and stay - back. He’s pissed at you right now. You’ll just make it worse.”

Clint considered that, swallowing hard, and Tony felt satisfied to see the fear that played momentarily across the man’s usually stoic expression. He was glad for the suit’s face plate, because seeing that chink in Clint’s armor made him smile, hard and unkind.

“Staying,” Clint finally replied, pulling his bow off his back and readying it, pushing down the emotions so his face went still once more. “You go - smooth things out.”

Tony nodded and thrust away, readying himself to yet again face the Hulk. He didn’t want to put the him in lockdown unless it was absolutely essential; waking up in a cage was always hard on Bruce, and he’d had enough of it lately.

“Come on, Big Guy!” was Tony’s opening gambit, but his first glimpse at the Hulk told him that the friendly approach wasn’t going to work. The Hulk was well and truly pissed, and worse, _focused_ \- working his way methodically through demolishing every piece of furniture within reach. Tony went carefully still, hoping he wouldn’t be next, as the creature stopped smashing the dresser to pieces and turned furious green-white eyes Tony’s direction.

“Look,” Tony started, going with the first thing that came to mind, voice serious now. “No one’s going to hurt you or Bruce tonight. I won’t let them.” He stayed where he was, hovering just a couple of inches from the ground, ready to dart away if need be. He endured the Hulk’s scrutiny, those huge eyes scanning him up and down for weapons, threats.

“HURT,” Hulk replied, stomping down what remained of an end table. He picked up a floor lamp to hurl it through the bathroom wall, too close to Tony’s head for comfort. “NO. NOT HURT, TONIGHT.” He stared at Tony for a moment, head tilted, a hint of question in those huge eyes.

Tony wasn’t sure what the Hulk wanted to know, so he tried the first thing that came to mind. “Right. Not hurt tonight. And if you’ll calm down and let me have _Bruce_ back, we can make sure there’s no chance of - “

That huge face frowned, cheeks puffing in frustration, and Tony shut up instinctively, had to fight not to take flight. His body hadn’t forgotten or forgiven the pain this beast had caused it, twitched involuntarily away. That feeling was bad enough on its own, but worse - the Hulk noticed, and his eyes hardened, teeth clenched. 

“NO BANNER RIGHT NOW,” Hulk answered, hand snatching up an ottoman to brandish it Tony’s direction. “LEAVE HULK ALONE.” The wood creaked as Hulk’s hand tightened around it, arms shaking with barely-controlled fury.

“Got it,” Tony responded quickly, remembering at the last moment not to raise his hands in surrender. That pointed the repulsors right at Hulk’s face, and the Big Guy never took kindly to it. “I’m going. Just - promise you’ll stay on this floor for smashing?”

The Hulk snarled and slammed the ottoman to the ground, sending shards of wood flying. “LEAVE NOW!” He lifted great fists and started pounding the parts that remained into splinters, lost in his rage.

There would be no talking him down, Tony knew. He thrust away, back to where Clint stood, in precisely the same position as he’d held when Tony went away. Tony didn’t need to explain; the howls and roars were enough evidence of failure, and the men ran to the elevator together as Tony ordered Jarvis to lock down the floor. Not even lockdown procedures, though, could completely muffle the roars, the slams, the crunches - not until they were several floors above the Hulk’s rampage below, where they stepped off the elevator into one of Tony’s many suites.

The floor opened under Tony so that a dozen clicking and whirring robotic arms could remove the suit. “I need a drink,” he said as his face emerged, and one of the arms turned toward a nearby cabinet, opening it. “Scotch,” he requested. The arm lifted a bottle, poured some of the liquid into a tumbler, added two ice cubes. The glass slid into Tony’s hand just as the final pieces of the suit disappeared under the floor. 

“Thanks,” Tony told the arm, patting it lightly as it slid past him, disappearing as well. He swirled the glass a moment, then downed the drink as he moved to the cabinet to pour another. 

He didn’t offer Clint a drink. Clint didn’t ask for one.

“Just tell me, straight up,” Tony said in a measured voice once he’d finished the second drink. He didn’t look Cilnt’s direction. “What the hell did you say to him after that last experiment? Was he _mad_ at you?”

Clint swallowed, nodded, watching Tony wince as he caught the movement in the corner of his eye. “He accused me of taking you down so I could be the first person he saw.”

Tony’s eyes went cold as he turned toward Clint, jaw clenched so hard his voice was tight. “And you didn’t think to mention this _before_?”

Clint’s eyes were just as hard. “I _did_ mention it. To _Bruce_. Have been trying to talk to him about it all week.” He paused, letting that sink in, watching Tony’s eyes register surprise before they bled back to anger. “It was _our_ business - not yours.”

“Bruce’s business _is_ my business,” Tony snarled.

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Clint responded, as cold as Tony was hot.

The gaze Tony leveled on Clint next was pure venom, and Clint could feel the man seething underneath, fighting against lashing out. “I swear, Clint, if you _ever_ hurt -”

“I didn’t,” Clint responded coolly. “I wouldn’t.” He glowered. “Can’t believe you’d even suggest.”

Tony shot back. “SHIELD turned him over to _Ross_ \- ”

“Under _orders_ , Stark.” Clint returned, voice actually raising louder than Tony’s. “Using _your_ technology to hold him, in fact. We were all complicit, just like we all are now. This is tearing him apart, Tony, and _you know it_.”

Tony fumed, trembling, as he slammed the tumbler down on a counter, hard enough that Clint heard glass crack. “Damnit, Clint!” he exclaimed, picking up and slamming the glass down twice more, until it was ready to break. Then he shoved the glass away, watching it skitter across the top of the bar and down to the floor to shatter. He looked away then, leaning hips on a table nearby, settling hands on the tabletop.

Clint wasn’t sure what was going on with Tony, but he could see the man fighting something down. He considered speaking, decided against it, and let Tony fight the fury in silence.

At last, Tony slammed a hand into the table and shoved away, turning Clint’s direction. His voice was quieter now, but no less calm for it. “Go to the basement, Clint. Stay in the secure suite. As much as I’d love to say our security will hold, I - can’t promise.”

Clint gritted his teeth. “All the same, I’ll stick to my room.”

Tony sneered in return. “Your life, your decision.” He snatched the bottle of scotch from the cabinet and headed toward a door on the opposite wall. “Me, I’m going to drink scotch, pass out, and wait for Bruce to come back. I’ll let you know when it’s safe.”

Clint just nodded as he watched Tony go, keeping his thoughts to himself, speaking up only to ask, “Is there protocol? For dealing with Bruce, after...”

Tony let him trail off, pausing close to the doorway. “Yes,” he finally answered. “Don’t, until I say so.”

Clint fought back half a dozen unkind responses. At last, he simply nodded.

Tony nodded in return, motioning at last toward the liquor cabinet. “Help yourself to one...or two.”

A hint of a smile appeared at the edges of Clint’s lips. “Appreciated,” he replied. Tony didn’t respond in kind, simply nodding once before he disappeared into his bedroom, doors closing behind him automatically.


	10. Chapter 10

Clint had always been partial to vodka.

Of course, he’d had to develop a taste for a number of different alcohols for his missions. From the rich sweetness of plum wine to the bitter burn of low-end ouzo, Clint had a variety of alcohol-derived experiences. When it was his decision, though, he went always for the highest top-end vodka he could find, over ice, plain.

Which is what he had now - a bottle of some of Tony’s finest, a bucket of ice nearby. And a display, alive, showing him the floor where the Hulk raged below.

It was apparent the Hulk wasn’t looking for escape or coming after Clint; instead, he methodically selected furniture to pick up, crush, mangle. He turned everything his hands picked up into dust and splinters, a structured demolition, before he moved on to whatever was next. It was like watching a controlled burn; everything was devastation, but there seemed to be an edge to it, a perimeter. Clint didn’t know what to make of it.

The Hulk had been at it for nearly a hour. He’d avoided the lab, strangely, leaving the equipment alone, but worked his way through the other rooms on the floor, reducing furniture and shelves to rubble. Every room looked like it had been deliberately demolished, all the furniture it contained reduced to small pieces. The Hulk was on the last, and obviously wearying.

Clint wondered how many times Tony had done just this - looked on from afar as the Hulk wound down, ran out of fury. He wondered if Tony was watching now, assumed he was. Tony seemed to watch everything Bruce did these days, Clint mused, as he watched the creature sit down heavily and lean against a nearby wall, eyes closing slightly.

Clint poured more vodka and leaned in toward the display, watching as the Hulk seemed simply to cave in, shrinking rapidly, skin tone fading to dusty flesh. He’d seen this before on surveillance tapes, but never something this vivid, this clear. He took a sip, crunched a random bit of ice, as he watched Bruce emerge, body trembling.

“Audio?” Clint asked aloud.

“Sir, I’m certain Dr. Banner would prefer if you -”

“Then I’m sure you don’t have to tell him.” Clint interrupted. “And I know you’d prefer I not go digging around for the volume dial on my own.”

A brief pause let Clint know Jarvis actually considered before deciding. Then, without commentary, the audio feed for the room switched on.

Bruce was moving now, sitting up, eyes confused and a bit unfocused. His breathing came in hitched pants, matching the trembling in his limbs. Slowly, his eyes focused, and he scanned the room, hands pulling through his hair. “God,” he muttered, then pressed lips tightly together as he curled his body tight, knees against his chest.

Tony wasn’t there yet. This surprised Clint. He took a hefty swallow of vodka and asked, “Hey Jarvis - can I talk to him?”

“To Dr. Banner?” It sounded surprised.

Clint nodded, assuming the AI could see him, and picked up a little more ice from the bucket to toss in his drink. 

Another pause. “I am capable, yes, of connecting this room to Dr. Banner’s location, but I’m not sure he’d appreciate that just now.”

Clint tapped a finger on his glass, considering. “Does Tony talk to him after...something like this?”

“To avoid the unpleasantries that would be perpetrated upon myself should you attempt to dig up that knowledge on your own, I will answer that.” Clint smiled just a bit, always pleasantly surprised to hear the AI manage such dry venom. “He does, yes. Sometimes.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Really. Sometimes.”

“You may take up the matter with Mr. Stark at your leisure, Mr. Barton. For now,” and the screen and audio both shut off at once, “I think that is enough AI-assisted spying.”

Clint chuckled at that, couldn’t help but poke. “I’ve got half a dozen ways to tap into those feeds, Jarvis.”

“And I’ve a dozen ways to interrupt your taps, sir. Shall we try them out?”

Clint finished his drink, smiled, poured a little more as he shook his head. “Let’s not waste the time.”

“Indeed, sir.” 

Several minutes passed quietly, the only sound in Clint’s rooms that of ice cracking as it melted and his finger tapping at the edge of the glass. He sipped slowly, lost in thought, pondering over what he’d seen and done in the past few weeks. Much of it was troublesome, some deeply so - but then, dealing with anything vaguely Stark-related always seemed to be. Geniuses like him rarely worked well under orders - or scrutiny, for that matter - so it was hardly a surprise. But Tony had always been a special thorn in SHIELD’s side, seeming to work with them, but always with fingers crossed behind his back.

Still, Clint thought, he could understand. Tony was in the business of doing things for Tony, which meant he was usually fairly predictable. Even here, with the experiments on Bruce, the elaborate laboratories, the equipment and time and effort, Clint could see at least part of why Tony would do it, how it fed both Tony’s ego and his curiosity, and maybe something more.

Bruce’s motivations, though, were not as clear. Clint had, quite honestly, expected the man to leave New York almost immediately for some poor region in a country far away, and Natasha and Fury didn’t have to tell him they thought so, too. But he’d stayed - a week, a month, two - until the team had to admit they were embarrassingly wrong.

And then the accident, and they were all again certain Bruce would leave as soon as he saw Tony would recuperate. But again, Bruce didn’t leave - he stayed long after, until Ross found him, until they’d had to fight his team off, send out Hulk decoy stories, throw the ex-general off Bruce’s trail. SHIELD kept media, bounty-hunters, and foreign governments off Bruce’s scent as the man kept lingering in Stark Tower - the man who hadn’t stopped moving in a decade, whose last attempt to settle down and save himself led to the creation of an abomination that the military still struggled to keep under lock and key.

Something had most definitely changed in Bruce once he’d come to this tower, and Clint wasn’t at all sure that it was for the best. Not that he was ready to decide - not yet. He’d probably spoken less than a hundred words with Bruce since the last mission, and the tower wasn’t the best place for Clint to simply observe and measure.

“Is Tony down there now, Jarvis?” Clint asked. He heard the audio hum back to life.

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business, Mr. Barton.”

Clint set down his glass and stood, picking up the bow that sat within arm’s reach on a table nearby. “That’s okay - I’ll check.”

Jarvis actually sighed. “Very well, if you must know. Yes, he is. They are talking. And to pre-empt any further questions: Mr. Stark is informing Mr. Banner about the state of the floor and the tower, and Dr. Banner is explaining what he remembers.”

A brief pause, but Jarvis started up again the moment Clint made a move as if to speak. “Also - no, I am not recording the interaction, and no, I will not turn on the audio or video feed again. You may spy on your own, should you care to; I recognize your skills in that regard. Be my guest.”

Clint smirked. “I’ll wait, ask.”

“I think that the far superior option,” Jarvis answered.

Clint set down the bow, reached again for his glass, and settled in for a good night’s think.


	11. Chapter 11

Bruce woke to himself in a haze, the thoughts ringing through his head still not his own.

_GRAB. CRUSH. SMASH. GRAB. CRUSH. SMASH._

The words repeated in his head like a mantra, the Other Guy just barely below the surface, as Bruce struggled to sit up, his trembling limbs not quite obeying him yet. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, couldn’t see where he was with any clarity, and it felt like the beast wasn’t willingly letting go. Bruce was panting with the effort of remaining the one on the surface.

_LOOK, BANNER,_ the voice came, so clear Bruce almost expected to see the Hulk standing beside him. _SEE._

Bruce jumped, twitched, eyes focusing quickly to scan the devastated room, even though he knew he was as alone as he ever got. Trembling hands rose to pull through his hair, try and calm the flurry of images in his mind - Clint and Tony and fire and something that needed to be protected, a screaming madman of a father, the lab. Too fast, too much for him to process.

“God,” he muttered, shivering, pulling his legs in tight to his chest. The Other Guy wasn’t settled at all; he was seething, refusing to let go, pushing hard to stay right at the surface. He gave Bruce glimpses: huge hands tearing his bed apart, tearing the mattress in two. A green fist compacting a file cabinet to the floor with one slam. A foot stomping an end table to splinters. _COMING. LOOK. SEE._

“I can’t, not yet,” Bruce said, rocking now, trying to settle his breathing, gain some control. It was too soon, far too soon, and this onslaught was new and sudden.

“Can’t what?” came a voice, and Bruce’s eyes flew open to find Tony standing in the remains of the doorway, trying not to look concerned.

“Tony,” Bruce managed, his voice both relieved and shaky. Tony’s face pinched with worry, a look Bruce hated, wanted to banish forever. It was directed at Bruce far too often. 

“Oh, no, Tony,” Bruce continued as Tony move toward him, “don’t. Don’t look at me like that.” Bruce hated this period of vulnerability, how very raw he felt, like every emotion expressed within a hundred feet of him just flowed right in, invaded. 

“Sorry,” Tony replied, forcing himself to slow down, bite back his immediate response. “Concerned citizen Tony a bit too much?”

Bruce just nodded, keeping his eyes averted. He remained silent, still, until Tony shoved some rubble aside with a foot, plopped down next to him on the still fairly-intact floor. Bruce let his body slump Tony’s direction, closed his eyes as Tony put a hand around his shoulders, appreciating how that simple, firm touch always seemed to help the Other Guy calm down, let go. They stayed like that a long moment as the trembling slowed, as Bruce’s breaths came more and more easily.

“Thanks,” Bruce murmured finally, taking a deep breath for the first time since returning to himself. The hand on his shoulder squeezed in response, lifted.

“Here,” Tony offered, dumping a fresh pair of pajama pants in Bruce’s lap. “Not much left of your previous pair.” And though Bruce had long ago given up being modest about the state of his dress, Tony still turned away, allowing the man a modicum of privacy. 

“How bad?” Bruce asked as he slipped out of the destroyed bottoms and into the new ones. 

Tony waited until Bruce was done and he could turn back, knowing Bruce would want to see his face, read his expression. “Surprisingly controlled,” he started, “especially since the Big Guy was at it almost an hour. I’d say he’s been practicing the focus we’ve been trying to teach him.”

Bruce’s eyebrows went up slightly, and he glanced around the room for confirmation. Every bit of furniture in the space had been reduced to rubble, the pieces so indistinct that Bruce couldn’t tell what the room had once been. But then again...

Tony saw the realization settle in and grinned. “Yeah, you see?” He motioned to the walls, the ceiling. “Barely touched. The floor’s gots some dents, and the doorway’s shot to hell, but he respected the basic structure. That’s progress, right?”

“Right,” Bruce responded absently, still taking it in. “So, are all the rooms -”

“Pretty much like this, Bruce.” Tony situated himself in front of Bruce’s face again to catch his gaze, which had started to grow weary around the edges. “Furniture’s done for, but it can be replaced, just like we showed him. Better yet, look.” He pulled a mini-display from a pocket, flicking it on and passing it to Bruce. “The lab, live. He didn’t touch it.”

Bruce blinked, unbelieving. He adjusted the camera angle, taking in every corner, and blinked again. “Wow.” His hands, still holding the display, dropped into his lap. “Wow.”

Tony grinned, eyes hard and bright, excited. He grabbed Bruce’s arm, surprising a jolt out of him, forcing his drooping eyes back open. “He’s _learning_ , Bruce. This was a crazy, out-of-the-blue transformation, and _still_ he didn’t go apeshit. Do you see?”

_LOOK_ , the Other Guy responded from deep within, uncurling, pushing. The broken bed, the torn mattress, the destroyed table flashed through Bruce’s mind, too vivid. _SEE_. 

Bruce saw, and he wanted - god, _wanted_ to believe, so much so that he ached with the need for it, down to his bones. Especially now, when he was soul-weary, exhausted, ripped open. Impossible in this state not to feel Tony’s hope, the Other’s Guy’s pride, his own desperate hunger for release, all vying for attention, control, time. It was more than he wanted to feel right now, too many conflicting emotions rising against the tide: the memories of dozens of failures, the dashed hopes of the past, the lives damaged in his search for some tiny hint of peace.

“Not now, guys,” Bruce finally managed, throat tight, putting up a hand Tony’s direction, pushing the air. His fingers trembled again, just slightly, with the effort of keeping both hope and despair in check. “Too close, too...raw.” He felt like he could claw himself apart, tear out the core, be done.

Tony leaned in, hand squeezing, desperately wanting to continue until Bruce understood, until Tony saw that glimmer of hope he’d waited so long to see. They’d worked on this exclusively for months, _months_ , and now, with the evidence all around them...but Bruce’s eyes looked bruised, worn beyond understanding, his gaze open and pleading and so very raw. Every bit of Bruce’s body was tense, holding, hoping that they were done, but prepared for the next onslaught if it came, expecting it. And Tony couldn’t do that, not to Bruce, not when the man’s gaze begged him to let him be, for now. For just a little while. 

Tony’s expression softened, caved, and Bruce’s body slumped in relief, suddenly heavy and close. He leaned into Tony unabashedly, eyes closing, a hand fumbling wearily for Tony’s shoulder. Tony let him find it, grab on, then helped Bruce to his feet by leaning on the nearby wall, one steadying arm around Bruce’s waist. 

“Rest first, then,” Tony finally responded. Bruce nodded slowly, his head nearly against Tony’s shoulder, and murmured assent.


	12. Chapter 12

“Pepper, it’s fine - minimal damage. Everything worked exactly as planned; we were safe the whole time. We just need to, you know, refurnish the floor, and maybe fix a few doorways...”

Their conversation had started out pleasantly enough. Pepper returned Tony’s call around 5 AM local time, and though Tony knew he looked bedraggled and bleary, especially in comparison to Pepper’s post-work radiance, he was pleasantly surprised to see her expression soften, that lovely smile spread slowly. He’d responded with a sloppy grin and chuckle of his own, imagining her warmth, her presence. He’d wished for a Pepper-scented pillow to squeeze.

They’d exchanged the knowing glances that stood in for statements of love, then Pepper had launched into a description of the business dealings she’d been arranging. They were impressive, smart, built around Stark’s recent foray into medical technology, and Pepper’s work generated buzz far beyond the initial contacts she’d flown to Japan to meet. All this she shared with precision and efficiency, deflecting Tony’s questions when they were distractions, answering them when they mattered, never once inflating her own ego in the process. Tony admired the hell out of her, wished she were here for him to offer her a flute of champagne, treat her to a symphony or a dinner or a new jet or whatever the hell else she wanted in return for being so amazing, so good.

Pepper had seen the look in his eyes, smiled in turn. “One more week. I’ll be home soon.”

Tony had flinched - only the tiniest bit, mind you, wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone else - and Pepper’s expression went a little harder. “Tony,” she asked, voice carefully neutral, “what did you do?” 

Tony wanted to curse her efficiency, her acumen, at that point. Pepper had been in Japan since a week before the slug-men invasion, and Tony hadn’t exactly been keeping her informed about his Hulk research before that. He fidgeted, face twitching a couple of times, as he tried to come up with words.

His silence was enough to make Pepper sigh, walk away from the camera a moment. She’d returned less than a minute later, still too soon for Tony’s mind to settle on a suitable response, martini in hand. He sat there, stymied, pinned by her eyes despite the distance between them, feeling every bit the naughty schoolboy. Which, in other circumstances, could be fun, but -

Before she’d spoken again, Pepper swallowed a solid third of her drink. Tony wanted one of his own hard, which must have shown, because Jarvis activated a hand usually used to remove the leg joints of the suit to head to the room’s liquor cabinet, pour a hefty dose of scotch with two ice cubes, and slide across the floor to deliver to Tony’s hands. Tony took it and drank half in one gulp, certain that the good parts of this conversation were over.

“If - if I told you that you make me feel like a naughty schoolboy, could we -”

“I trust you,” Pepper interrupted, eyes glancing down at the drink he’d already half-emptied, and Tony wanted to yell at her that she shouldn’t, she _knew_ him, and she _really_ should know better by now. But he knew she was being sincere, could see it in those lovely eyes, that open stare, and he just couldn’t lie. And so the story of Bruce’s nightmare, Clint’s involvement, and the Hulk’s emergence - in the tower, _again_ \- had come tumbling out while Pepper looked on, swallowed hard, stayed frighteningly quiet.

Pepper finished her martini in three long gulps when Tony finished fumbling out the story. One hand went to her mouth, then lifted to cover her eyes as her head shook back and forth while Tony tried to reassure her that really, the damage was minimal, and the threat was well contained. And now, she was just sitting there, forehead pinched, eyes looking elsewhere, and Tony wanted desperately to make that look go away.

“I can have it fixed by the time you get back. Mostly fixed. I _promise_ , Pepper, I -”

Pepper held up a hand to the screen, and Tony bit back the rest of that sentence with effort. Her concern always left him feeling so damned inept that he wanted to lash out at something, and all manner of biting comments passed through his mind, held back by force of will alone. His hand squeezed his glass tight, and he fought the urge to throw it against the far wall.

“ _Jesus_ , Tony,” Pepper finally said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “How can you keep - “

“He had a nightmare,” Tony interrupted, defensive. “Unless you want to me to drug Bruce to sleep every night, I don’t know how -”

“Oh, sure,” Pepper added, turning eyes both angry and frustrated. “And you weren’t doing anything that would give him nightmares, now were you -”

“- how you expect me to safeguard against, and _hey_ , that’s a harsh -”

“Like, oh, some super-secret experiment you’re running on -”

“- statement, and _wait a second_ , you can’t throw around that, don’t -”

“- which is it now? Bruce, or the -”

“ ** _Stop_** , Pepper. Just - **_stop_**.”

The anger, the _venom_ , in his voice surprised Tony and stopped Pepper short. She frowned, back stiffening, lips pressed hard and tight. Tony clenched his teeth together to keep anything else from coming out.

“We will talk about then when I get home, Tony Stark,” Pepper finally stated, voice clipped and harsh. “And I am through letting you and Bruce play your private little games.”

The screen blipped off before Tony could hurl a snide comeback, so Tony hurled his scotch across the room instead. He was starting to understand why the Hulk spent so many years telling people to leave him alone. He flopped back into his bed - never quite managed to leave it during the video call - and stared at the ceiling as if he could make it crack and crumble under his will. He wanted a reason to put on the suit, take to the skies, blast something into orbit. 

For months, people had almost universally avoided Bruce - and, by extension, Tony - leaving them to do whatever they pleased. R&D had productized the work the two had thrown their way, creating technologies that stood to revolutionize the medical tech industry, and Stark’s company was doing well. Add to that the clean energy work he’d started, and his R&D team had enough projects for the next decade. No one had complained when Bruce and Tony stopped sending revolutionary concepts their direction; hell, they probably felt relieved.

Likewise with SHIELD. There had been a glitch in relationships in the month following what everyone kept referring to as “the incident,” and even in his painkiller-induced haze, Tony had recognized all the additional watchful eyes that suddenly showed up around him and the tower. But the additional surveillance had faded once Tony agreed to regular briefings and visits from Fury, and even the director had left Bruce mostly alone, only stopping in twice for a brief chat with the man. Jarvis had recorded both interactions in their entirety, and Tony watched the surveillance a dozen times, seeing nothing that made him think Fury considered Bruce any more a threat than he had from the beginning. 

And the government surveillance Tony had expected had simply not come to pass. Tony was sure SHIELD had something to do with that, and kept that in mind any time he dealt with Fury or anyone else in his command. He wasn’t above appreciating secret assistance.

But now, suddenly, Bruce and Tony had eyes upon them, and it was uncomfortable, nasty. Clint. Pepper. And whatever it was that had managed to plant some scarily smart spy tech in the tower. No, not in the tower; they’d turn the tower _into_ spy tech, so that any signal from any device was an open invitation into Jarvis’ mainframe. He’d managed to isolate the data that most needed protecting, but still, Tony felt exposed, dirty, not at all sure now what people knew and didn’t know. 

And he and Bruce were so close to making a breakthrough...too close for this all to be threatened. This, more than anything, made Tony grit his teeth, throw himself out of the bed to pull on a T-shirt, and stalk down to the lab.

Fury had backed off, Pepper was called away on an extended trip, and Clint had stayed, all when he and Bruce were actually starting to get results and Jarvis was getting hacked. Tony didn’t believe in coincidence.

Someone knew more than they were telling.

“Jarvis,” he said as he went, “I need you to pull up all the data you have for the last ten months on any transmissions coming into or out of the tower. No matter how small. If someone had a radio on or sent a text message, I want to know about it. Correlate and send to the primary display.”

“Working, sir,” Jarvis answered, sounding satisfied, perhaps a bit proud. “I have been monitoring a large variety of frequencies since the invasions, and have collected a tremendous amount of data.”

“Send it, all of it,” Tony replied, on the elevator now. “Everything matters.”

“I couldn’t agree more sir,” Jarvis answered as the doors closed and Tony descended.


	13. Chapter 13

Bruce was deep inside, deeper than sleep. He knew the place, had come here before. But it had been a while; the Other Guy had been riding closer to the surface lately, and they’d been able to speak there, in waking hours.

Coming here, in and of itself, was a message - especially since, this time, it took on the shape of the antique lab hidden under Woton Hall - his refuge, his respite, the place where he first found peace.

Peace, he now knew, that had been violated and broken.

“SEE, BANNER,” he heard, both inside and outside of him, the voice pervasive, shaking him to his core. The creature that owned it loomed behind him, giant hand resting on his shoulder, closer now to tangible than he’d ever been before. Part of Bruce wanted to reach up and take that hand in his own; another part wanted to break free, flee. 

He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to watch yet another part of his world die.

“Show me,” Bruce said out loud, before he could give in to the desire to turn and run. The hand on his shoulder tightened as the Other Guy grunted appreciation. And then, the room erupted, and Bruce gave in to memory.

*****

Tony was heavily invested in work by the time Bruce meandered into the lab late the next day, looking haunted and weary. They went through their routine - Tony taking samples, Bruce protesting sleepily. If Tony noticed anything different about Bruce’s expression, he didn’t show it, and he didn’t try and stop Bruce as he padded out in search of caffeine. Bruce barely said a word; his mind was still trying to parse what he’d seen - cameras, and danger, and fire, and something else he couldn’t quite manage to grasp. Something gray and dark and dangerous, just out of his field of vision.

Clint was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee into Bruce’s mug, and Bruce couldn’t help but groan. He wasn’t ready to deal with Barton - or, well, anyone. “Black, right?” Clint asked, pushing the cup across the counter, expression blank.

Bruce frowned. He need time to wake up, to sift through what had happened last night - both during the transformation and after it. And, perhaps, before - what led to it, why the nightmares had started up again, what was going on inside his increasingly-split head. So much to think about, process - and here was Clint, all of a sudden reaching out, likely seeking to add more to his already-full plate. _Why now?_ Bruce thought, groaning as he rubbed his eyes, took the cup hesitantly. He headed for the seat he always took, which had already been pulled out from the table, ready for him to sit down. He sighed loudly enough that Clint threw him a glance as he poured his own cup.

“Rough night?” Clint asked. Bruce glowered in response, and Clint raised a hand in surrender. “Stupid question.” He lowered himself into a chair, watching as Bruce turned away, dropped his head and shoulders, took a deep breath. 

“You want to talk,” Bruce stated as he slumped into his chair, coffee cup hitting the table hard enough that some of the liquid sloshed over the edge. Bruce ignored it, running the hand not holding the cup through his hair as he stretched and yawned, but Clint saw the tension in his body rise nonetheless, the same tension he’d seen in the man every time he was alone with anyone except Tony. Bruce hadn’t become comfortable here in the tower, Clint thought; he’d just learned to better hide that tension, his readiness to bolt.

Clint nodded in response. “Need to.”

“Figures,” Bruce murmured, putting a hand over his eyes, rubbing. Couldn’t they see that he didn’t have it in him? Bruce felt sure he looked as frayed as he felt - tired, battered, torn inside and out. Hulk battered away inside, demanding to be heard, but he couldn’t listen; he couldn’t take another change. He picked up his coffee, dropping a napkin on the spill, and took a sip.

Clint waited, silent, and endured the older man’s scrutiny when Bruce looked up and studied him with worn, disinterested eyes. “What if I don’t want to?” he asked, and Clint smirked.

“Then I’ll wait,” Clint responded, “and continue to make myself available, at your disposal 24/7, for when you _are_ ready.” He took a sip from his mug, meeting Bruce’s now-burning gaze with his own blank expression. At least he had Bruce’s attention.

Bruce shoved back in his chair, turning away from Clint, but he didn’t stand or try to leave. He picked up his mug, sipped in silence, thinking about last night: the nightmare, his memory of Woton and his father’s face, the Other Guy’s controlled destruction and what he’d shown him later, deep within. That gray figure that wouldn’t resolve itself, kept just out of eyesight. He wanted to lock himself in his room to think it all through without distraction. The Other Guy stirred in the back of his mind, wanting that too - time alone to process, come to terms with what they were both learning and coming to fear.

But Bruce knew better. When Tony looked up from his work, he’d come and find Bruce - he always did, and no lock in the tower kept Tony out. And Clint, Bruce was certain, could follow him everywhere, anywhere - or, if he didn’t, he’d be watching from some perch or other far away. In the tower - hell, in the _world_ \- there was no such thing as privacy for Bruce. His skin itched with that understanding, the desire to try and outrun the eyes that followed him. He hadn’t wanted to run this badly in a long time.

To where, though? Where was safe? At least here, Bruce could keep an eye on those who watched him, have some idea of what they wanted. And the collateral damage his alter ego left in its wake...well, here, at least, it was controlled, so far.

“Fine, fine,” Bruce finally sighed, swallowing the last of his coffee, standing to pour another. He glanced at Clint as he passed, but his eyes didn’t remain there; Clint watched them roam the room, the habit of a man accustomed to being hunted, surrounded, captured. “You need to talk? Talk.” He poured another cup, remaining standing, leaning against the counter, fighting the voices in his head that wanted to turn on Clint, crush and maim and burn.

Clint turned in his chair to face Bruce, keeping his hands carefully visible and in front of him, and sized up the potential threat before him. There was the obvious looming potential of the Hulk making an appearance, though Bruce’s eyes seemed more resigned than angry at the moment (never _not_ angry, no - they always had an edge to them, but it was minimal now). The coffee cup, full of hot liquid. The pot, within Bruce’s reach, which could be easily flung Clint’s direction. A drawer at Bruce’s hip that contained predominantly dull kitchen utensils, but at least one sharpened knife - Clint had checked earlier. He calculated means of dealing with each, automatically, without thinking.

“This is a mission,” Clint began, keeping his tone bland and unassuming, the statement a fact. 

Bruce nodded. “Of course. You wouldn’t have stayed so long otherwise.” 

There was accusation in Bruce’s tone, but Clint didn’t rise to it. He watched Bruce’s hands set down the coffee cup, fingers lifting to idly play over one another, and noticed his lips purse and tighten. The man fought his frustration, and Clint wondered, not for the first time, how close Bruce kept himself to the edge of anger to keep the monster at bay, and whether that line had shifted in recent months. _There are things Bruce needs to know now_ , Clint reminded himself, pushing himself to continue, despite instincts warning him that this wasn’t a good time, there wasn’t ever a good time with Bruce. He’d put this off long enough.

“The day after Ross found you,” Clint said, his voice a little quieter, carefully calm, “SHIELD agents cracked open the remainder of one of those big attack robots. The systems weren’t Stark tech, but they were...close. Far too close.” He kept his gaze on Bruce, letting that sink in, watching the man drop his eyes, rub his knuckles with one calloused thumb. God, it’d be nice if that man were easier to read. “Our team managed to salvage some of the navigation and protocol systems, and what survived seems to suggest -”

Bruce pulled off his glasses, folded them, and sat them on the counter as he rubbed his eyes with a finger and thumb, a gesture that set off alarms in Clint’s head, reminding him of Tony’s mouthed words not that long ago in the lab: give them a minute. He’d said them, and Clint hadn’t forgotten, wondered how close the Other Guy was to the surface.

“Team,” Bruce reiterated simply, but Clint heard the irritation in his tone.

“Yeah,” Clint continued, a bit irritated himself, “Team. Like we’re supposed to be, like we _were_. You, me, Tony, the rest. You remember that?” 

Bruce frowned Clint’s direction. Clint frowned right back. A dozen unspoken accusations passed between them. 

Bruce finally looked away first, snatching up his glasses, folding and unfolding them in his hands as he pressed his lips together to keep from lashing out. It wouldn’t help anything, would serve only to fuel the frustration he already felt simmering inside. He took a couple of deep breaths, pleased to see Clint tense slightly in his seat, ready to jump to action if need be.

At last, Bruce looked up as he settled his glasses in his pocket, fixing Clint with a hard stare. “So - what did the team discover?”

Clint set his jaw, meeting Bruce’s gaze evenly. “Enough to think someone is stealing Tony’s work, and not just on robotics.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at the pause, eyes going wide as the realization set in. “On _me_?” He blinked, all movement frozen for a moment as he considered that possibility, considered the fact that at least part of him wasn’t surprised.

Clint nodded once. “There are spies, maybe - if they know what they’re looking for. If not, pawns. I’m here to figure out who they are and how much they know.” He paused, watching Bruce absorb the knowledge, fighting the urge to offer him a hand. “And, of course, how they’re getting that information to Ross, or whoever sold him those things.”

Bruce’s legs felt suddenly weak, and he grasped at the counter as he leaned into it. The tower - Stark Tower - compromised. For information on him. To use against him. Again he was dangerous to those trying to help him, even here. “How much do they...have they -”

“We’re not sure,” Clint interrupted. “Jarvis has quarantined the experiment files, and we’re hopeful that very little information, if any, was breached.” Bruce moved to a chair, taking his cup with him, eyes looking sunken now, and Clint hated what he had to share next. “But Bruce...this is some sophisticated work, and the tower isn’t the only place where you and Tony have accessed and updated those files.”

Bruce just nodded, hands wrapped around his coffee cup, squeezing tight. The color had drained from his face. Clint turned in his chair to face him, waiting. It was a lot to drop on the man.

Bruce’s thoughts came together slowly, through a fog. The best security money could buy and Stark could dream up, and still they’d been compromised. _He’d_ been compromised. All those details about how his body worked, all their discoveries, potentially already in the hands of one of his greatest enemies - certainly, the man who hated him most. Someone smart, _really_ smart, was after him. 

His dream, what the Other Guy had shown him. Woton Hall, compromised. The cameras he’d found running, recording his every move, every word. The motion detectors, the wires. He’d forgotten about them, because of what came after, but - they had been there, so long ago, already watching him.

_SAME_ , he heard, deep within, the Other Guy curling, writhing, wanting to rise. _SAME, COMES TO HURT BANNER. TAKE APART_. He saw fire, felt flames, ducked the live wire swinging over his head as the Other Guy roared fury, pulled an ancient computer from the wall and watched it crash down.

Bruce’s hands shook. His forehead broke out in a cold sweat. Clint silently prepped a knockout arrow. But Bruce kept it under control, squeezing his eyes shut, wiping a trembling hand across his brow as he took a deep breath. The growing tension in the room dissipated somewhat, and Clint let his muscles relax a bit.

When the trembling stopped, Bruce picked up his cup, took a swallow of coffee gone cold. “I should talk to Tony, make a plan to -”

“Tony doesn’t know,” Clint interrupted, voice quiet, eyes fixed on Bruce. “And it needs to stay that way, for now.”

Bruce fumbled the cup he’d been settling on the table, and it upended, spilling the little bit of cold coffee remaining. He ignored it, staring back at Clint with wide eyes that alternated surprise and anger. A dozen responses rose to his lips, all trying to tumble out at once, causing Bruce to raise a fist to his mouth, trying to press two knuckles hard against his lips to keep them together until he could _think_ , could respond appropriately...

“You _ass,_ ” spilled out anyway, voice dripping venom, just before Bruce managed to close his mouth.

Clint shrugged, glancing away. “‘Fair,” he responded, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll accept that.” He couldn’t quite hide his discomfort, though, the set of his jaw and averted gaze, giving it away.

Bruce dropped his hand, pushed back from the table, and Clint’s attention snapped back fully to him. “I won’t keep this from him, Clint. I can’t.” He moved to stand, but Clint was on his feet more quickly. Before Bruce could take a step, Clint had positioned himself at the one doorway into this afterthought of a kitchen on the lab floor, a space Tony had renovated from an old storage room. There was only one way in or out, and Clint blocked it. 

Bruce balled his hands into fists. “Bad plan, Clint.”

Clint nodded. “Agreed. I hate it. But I need you to hear me out.”

Inside Bruce, something else was rising on a rolling tide of anger, and he wasn’t exactly inclined to hold back. “Thirty seconds, cupid,” he growled, voice deeper, not quite his own.

Clint swallowed hard, already feeling the press of that same strange instinct that had gripped him the night before, threatening to take over his body, force it to flee. “Thirty seconds, right.” He thought fast. “So - surely you can see that Tony isn’t exactly...uh, _rational_...where you’re concerned, Bruce. Right?”

“ _We’re_ concerned,” Bruce answered, hands flexing into fists, relaxing, doing it again. Clint forced his eyes back up to Bruce’s, saw a slight tinge of greenish-white, and talked faster.

“Right, you _and_ the Other Guy. So what do you think he’d do if he knew there was someone or something in the tower that posed a threat to you both?”

Clint watched Bruce’s head tilt as he considered, the gesture nearly a mirror image of the Hulk listening to Tony talking to him on the street. _Hulking at shadows _, Tony had said, and the creature’s head had tilted, just like this, as he took in the words. He’d acquiesced then, and Clint took heart at that memory.__

__“Tony...” Bruce started, and his voice was even deeper now, and Clint couldn’t help but put a hand back, feel for his bow. “Yes. Tony would protect us.”_ _

__“ _How_ , Bruce?” Clint managed, his own voice a little more desperate than he’d expected it to be. Bruce considered, the Other Guy riding just under his skin. They shared a thought, an image: Tony, furious, tearing things apart, calling the suit, yelling at Jarvis to lock everything down until he found the culprit, eliminated the threat. The Other Guy reveled in that understanding, ready to tell Tony now, _now **now**_ , and go hunting the stupid puny creatures who dared to put them at risk..._ _

__But Bruce - he saw what Clint was trying to convey, and he swallowed the Big Guy down, closing his eyes, letting his head fall back on his neck as he groaned with the effort, curling arms around his body, fighting to keep his feet._ _

__“You need them active to track them,” Bruce spat at the ceiling. “You’re still tracking their communications.”_ _

__Clint nodded, tension easing from his body. “We do. And we can’t risk Tony going off half-cocked and closing everything down, or we might never know who’s behind it.”_ _

__Bruce let himself slump to the floor, suddenly exhausted. “I hate this, Clint. I hate that you’re here, and that you told me, and I hate this. It’s not fair to Tony. It’s not fair to me.”_ _

__Clint lowered himself to the floor as well, curling his feet underneath him. “Had to tell one of you, Bruce, in case the data you’re gathering has been compromised. And only one of you is good at keeping secrets.”_ _

__“Not from Tony,” Bruce answered quietly, not looking up. “He’ll know.”_ _

__Clint nodded. “And he’ll ask you, like he always does. And you’ll dodge, just like you always do.” Bruce glowered, but Clint just shrugged. “You’ve never told him everything, Bruce. This is nothing new.”_ _

__Bruce wanted to lash back, tell Clint he shared everything that mattered, everything that meant anything - that he trusted Tony, even with the darkest parts of himself. But - had he? He’d shared, yes, and more than with most, but there was still so much he held back._ _

__And not just from Tony. From himself._ _

__Inside, a beast coiled and turned, smiling in the depths._ _


	14. Chapter 14

“Holy shit, Bruce. That could’ve _killed_ you.”

“Like that’s a first,” Bruce replied, fiddling with the microscope, trying to bring his work into focus.

Tony set down the soldering iron he was using, pulled off the goggles, turned in Bruce’s direction. “It might actually be,” he answered, “Chronologically, at least.” He pulled off his gloves and rolled his chair over to a nearby display, a wave of his hand bringing it to life. “The explosion on campus predates your accident by five -” he pulled up the articles, checked the dates, “- no, _six_ years. Six years before the Big Guy made himself known, and someone was already watching you.”

Bruce shook his head, not looking up. “No proof of that. Yes, there were cameras and wires and recordings, but they could’ve been left over from when the lab was put together. They weren’t exactly state of the art, and they blew up out before I could trace them.” He pulled away from the microscope, leaning back in his chair. “Precision explosives inside the cameras kept collateral damage to a minimum.”

Tony just raised an eyebrow. “The whole place burned down, Bruce. I think that counts as collateral damage.”

“Not from them, though.” Part of the memory he’d lived through last night rose unbidden, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday - his hands picking up one of the old tables, launching it at that sudden whump and smell of fire, his aim too high, his throw more powerful than he’d expected. The table smashed into an old draft hood, knocked loose a couple of tubes. Sparks had ignited the fumes, whatever they’d been.

Tony watched Bruce twitch, flinch away from something only his mind could see, and frowned. As if Bruce didn’t have enough memories to haunt him; he didn’t need yet another hidden threat from his past coming to the fore. “So you have no idea who put them there, or why?”

Bruce opened his eyes, let the memory pass as he shook his head. “Cameras were generic, and a little antiquated. I - he - was focused on keeping us alive, so details weren’t all that specific.”

Tony nodded. “The Big Guy give you anything more?”

“Lots,” Bruce replied, turning away from his work. “Just - none that makes any sense just yet.” He lowered his voice to a growl. “SAME. COMES. TAKE BANNER APART.” He stopped, sighed. “Stuff like that. But same as what, or what that means...” Bruce just shrugged.

“Big Guy’ll figure out how to tell you, sooner or later,” Tony responded, frowning a bit. “Though, all things considered, I think making that a priority might be in order.”

“Oh?”

Tony nodded, tapping a nearby table idly. “Yeah. Because I think we might have a privacy concern.” He whirled toward the nearest display, pulling up several programs running traces, tossing their information toward Bruce’s screen. “See, there have been just a few too many incidents lately, and..”

Bruce put on his glasses, looked at the first data set, and completely lost track of what Tony was saying. It hadn’t even been a week since Clint told Bruce about what was happening, but Tony had already started piecing things together for himself. Programs were reconciling data across every one of the systems in the tower - both those run by Jarvis and those independent of him - and comparing to known transmissions. Tony was looking for the spy in their midst, and from his private server, meaning Clint wouldn’t know. 

Even without knowing he was spying on Bruce’s business, Tony was doing just that. Again. A wave of irritation spread through Bruce, strong enough that he had to remove his glasses and pinch the brow of his nose to keep focus.

“...so _someone’s_ not telling us everything,” Tony finished, his voice far closer. Tony had stood and closed the distance between them as Bruce lost himself in that frustration. It alarmed him that he hadn’t even noticed Tony’s approach, had no idea how much time had passed. Tony’s shoulders tensed as he stopped, setting his jaw, crossing arms over his chest, and his eyes shone with a determination that only made Bruce feel even more scrutinized. “And I intend to find out who.”

Bruce swallowed, looked away, nodded. “Good luck.” He stood, then, heading toward his own rooms, ignoring Tony as his eyes grew wide, as he started to follow. Tony was always following, trailing along behind, refusing to give Bruce any peace, wanting more and more and more....

“Bruce? Don’t you want to -”

“- I’m _tired_ , Tony,” Bruce shot back, tone dark enough that Tony stopped abruptly. Bruce felt overwhelmed by all the recent demands on him and the Other Guy. They were worn thin, stretched to extremes. He wanted away from all the responsibility, all the expectations, the never-ending need to push for...what? For making everyone else happy, making everyone else feel safe and comfortable and okay, while he just kept splintering apart? Everyone wanted pieces of him, Tony more than others, and Bruce was simply running out of pieces to give.

Suddenly exhausted, Bruce waved one hand idly in Tony’s direction without turning around. “Been a long...month,” he murmured, glancing back only a moment before he turned once more toward his quarters. “Just...enjoy your homecoming with Pepper, and let me know if you find anything.” She’d called a few minutes earlier to let them know she’d be landing on time, and Bruce was looking forward to a few days’ respite.

Tony watched, befuddled, as Bruce slipped off his shoes at the doorway, entered his suite, and closed the door behind him. “Sure,” he called, not at all certain what had just transpired, “I’ll...do that.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: sex and violence ahead. Neither one super explicit, but there ya go.

“He’s keeping something from me, Pepper. Something _new_.”

Pepper let out a sigh, part relief, part frustration, as she toed out of her work heels. “Are you really bringing up Bruce, Tony? I’m home five minutes -”

“- twenty-seven, actually.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Correction. I’m back in my own room for _less than_ five minutes, not even out of my suit, and -”

Tony put up a hand. “I’ll stop. Stopping. Stopped.” He smiled just a bit, eyes lingering on her. “You just...get comfortable. Out of the suit.”

Pepper couldn’t help but smile back, even though she shook her head. She slipped off her jacket, tossing it on the bed, feeling Tony’s eyes on her. “I just would have expected you to avoid the subject, considering our last conversation about -”

“Moved on,” Tony interrupted. “Behind me, done. Besides, repairs are complete, replacements ordered, all’s good as new.” He stepped forward, reached out, his hands finding Pepper’s waist, gently turning her so she faced him. “See? All yours.” 

Tony stared into Pepper’s eyes, and she stared back, studying him. Her expression softened, and she smiled again as she pressed in, letting her hips move forward until she was leaning into him, arms wrapped loosely around his head. She settled in still further and found his lips with her own, kissing long and soft, holding him there until he sighed and gripped her waist more firmly.

“Bullshit, Tony Stark,” she whispered against his lips as she broke the kiss, tightening her arms around his neck as he started to pull back. Her chest fell against Tony, too, and she lifted one leg to brush against his calf, keeping him close. “You’re never all mine.” She smiled, though, and kissed him again, deeper this time, and he whimpered, hands roaming to her back to hold her tight against him. He came up for air, and she licked and nipped at his bottom lip, enjoying the shudder it sent through him.

“But you’re mine enough for now,” she told him, her lips brushing his, her hips pressed tight against his own, wanting to feel him react. And he did - oh, he always did, and she loved this power she held over him, to make him melt, to make him _want_. She’d seen his tapes - Tony showed them off with pride, to her and anyone who’d watch - and he’d never, never once, melted in another woman’s arms. Or man’s, for that matter.

Pepper leaned forward, and Tony moved back, legs hitting the bed, buckling at the knees. He fell back, and she let him pull her, fell onto him, lips crushing his as they landed. Two months she had waited for this; two months, and too many lonely nights, and not nearly enough attention from him in her absence. She ground her hips against his, feeling him respond, a growing warmth rising. 

“Drop your pants,” she murmured against his mouth, lifting her hips just enough for Tony’s scrambling hands to find his button and zipper, shove pants and underwear down just enough, just enough. She had to claim him; she’d been gone too long and knew he needed the reminder. And she needed him, more than she wanted to admit, more than she wished she knew.

Pepper’s hand found Tony hot and hard, easily ready. He moaned and bucked under her at even the slightest touch, and she laughed, putting her head back, letting him kiss her neck. She found herself already slick, so many missed nights fueling the moment, Tony’s sounds, his lips, his wandering hands helping. She shoved her panties to the side, pushed him against that wetness, rode him up and down while holding him against her with a hand. 

She buried him inside her a moment later, and then - oh, then Tony was hers, _fully_ hers, for a short while. 

But when it was over, when she’d ridden his cock until he came, then his fingers and face until she’d had her fill...when they were collapsed in a sweaty heap on her orange satin sheets, wrapped loosely around one another, Pepper didn’t lie to herself. She looked at Tony’s face, eyes closed, dozing, and knew his mind flew over a thousand other topics that barely included her, if at all. She wondered, briefly, if Bruce was top of the list.

And then Pepper dozed, too, dreaming of herself, here, wrapped up and alone with Tony for a sweet, short while.

*****

Tony slipped out of bed quietly, carefully, leaving Pepper to roll over and wrap herself in the sheets she always wanted on her bed when she returned from a business trip. She’d be pissed, probably, if she woke up without him at 3 AM, especially after having only been home for seven hours, eighteen minutes. Or so. But the display in the adjoining room had been blinking Jarvis’ “I’ve found something” code for a solid three minutes now, and Tony couldn’t wait any longer to find out what it was.

Tony snatched up pants, slinging them over his shoulder as he eased the bedroom door closed. He slipped them on while whispering for Jarvis to transfer information to the portable he had in his back pocket. He was in the elevator, doors closing, when it arrived, and Tony’s eyes went wide.

“Get me to Bruce,” he told the controls.

Tony was lost in his screen as he crossed the lab, opening and closing files, reading results, growing more and more tense with every finding. He shoved open the door to Bruce’s suite with one hip, words pouring out of him as he padded through, straight to the bedroom, without looking up.

“I swear, I’ve never seen anything like this, Bruce - not in weapons, not in telecom, not even in creating Jarvis.” Tony crossed through to the bedroom, eyes still on his screen. “It’s almost as if all basic electrical devices in the tower have become...become...

“Bruce?”

Tony stopped short just a few steps from the doorway. Something felt...wrong. Dangerous. Nothing like the sudden blaze of instinct that preceded the Hulk emerging, but something that struck just as deep. As if he’d just accidentally wandered into some other being’s territory, and could feel its calculating eyes watching, waiting to spring.

Bruce didn’t answer, but a slow shift, a sliding sound, came from the bed. And now those instincts lit, telling him to run, run now, run before whatever was there could move any more.

“Jarvis, lights, now,” Tony whispered, finding himself with back against the wall without realizing he’d even moved. He kept his eyes locked in the direction of the bed.

Lights bloomed to life quickly, flooding the room more rapidly than Tony’s eyes could handle. He blinked like mad, making out shape on the bed before it could become form, blinked again to focus, his back pressed against the wall as if he expected it to pounce. Instead, Bruce came into focus, barely propped up against his headboard, his weary, angry eyes settled in Tony’s direction. He clutched the covers around him with one arm, the other shielding his eyes from the light. In the sudden flood of light, his skin appeared pale, almost gray.

“Tony,” Bruce said quietly, his voice deeper than usual, hoarse with sleep. The arm that had shielded him from the ceiling lights lowered, and Bruce rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “God, you shouldn’t just -”

“What just happened, Bruce?” Tony interrupted, pushing away from the wall now that the sense of danger was passing, his skin still alight with that rush of adrenaline. His voice was harsher than he’d first intended, but then - perhaps it should be. This was something new, something Tony didn’t know about. This was something Bruce had _kept_ from him.

Bruce dropped his hand from his eyes, squinting in Tony’s direction, looking nothing more than tired now. “You mean, besides you bursting into my room in the wee hours without asking, then waking me up?” His tone wasn’t exactly kind.

Tony shook his head. “No, I mean that...” he waved his hand around the room, taking in the expanse of it. “ _feeling_. When I came in. What were you doing?”

Bruce frowned, shoving a pillow aside so he could sit up straighter. “I was _sleeping_ , Tony Not well, but still...sleeping.” He glowered Tony’s direction, that one glance enough to set Tony’s hair on end.

“ _That,_ ” Tony suddenly shouted, pointing at Bruce now, display in his hand completely forgotten. “That, what you did just now. What the fuck _is_ that, Bruce?” He was stalking forward now without realizing it, and Bruce was just as unintentionally pulling away.

“How should _I_ know?” Bruce shot back, eyes narrowing as his back hit the corner into which the bed pressed and Tony kept coming forward. His mouth raced ahead of his brain. “You barge into my room in the middle of the night and ask me to explain what _I’m_ doing in _my_ suite?” Bruce’s eyes flared again, and his jaw set. “Get out, Tony.”

Tony’s eyes went hard and bright, and his body grew dangerously still. His voice, too, dropped, a quiet calm before the storm. “What are you keeping from me, Bruce?”

Bruce’s eyes flew wide in surprise. “ _What?_ ” He shook his head and shoved himself out of the corner, dragging himself to the opposite edge of the bed now, face and body both deliberately turning away from the man who stood there, nearly shaking. He ignored Tony to pull open a drawer, snatch up the first pair of pants he could find, and start to pull them on.

Tony tried again, hands clenching, the display he still held threatening to break. “Bruce, just tell me, and I promise -”

“Oh, promise _what_ , Tony?” Bruce snapped back, interrupting, glaring at Tony as he fastened pants into place. “That you won’t ask for anything else? That you’ll leave me alone? Oh, _bullshit_ , Tony,” and his voice was raising to a shout now, eyes blazing, “we both know you’re not capable of it, that you’ve got to bleed me fucking _dry_ before -”

Tony’s arms lifted before he could stop them, shoving Bruce hard back against the bed. The man’s knees buckled where they hit the mattress, and he flopped back hard, eyes wide again. “I’m trying to _help_ you, you asshole,” Tony spat, leaning over, hands pinning Bruce’s shoulders before Bruce could move. Brown eyes latched onto Bruce with a fury he had only directed at enemies before, and in the deeps, Bruce felt a stirring, a hunger to rise.

“Get out,” Bruce repeated, his voice quieter now, more dangerous. 

But Tony was beyond listening as he pressed Bruce harder against the bed, standing right in front of him to lean over even more, put his face in Bruce’s own. “I swear, if you have been wasting my time while I break my _ass_ trying to help you...if you’ve been keeping secrets...” He snarled, shoving Bruce’s shoulders once, hard, sending the bed bouncing as he lifted and started to back away. 

Bruce had turned his head as Tony leaned over, the moment too sudden and intimate, hitting too close to home. But the shake of the bed, the snarl, brought his eyes snapping back to Tony, and he was on his feet and grabbing at the man’s shoulders before he could stop himself, shoving him away, the desire to push and hurt and get away rising fast. Tony managed to whirl one shoulder out of the way before Bruce could grab it, using Bruce’s own momentum against him to catch Bruce’s chest and knock him back against the bed. Bruce rolled with it, though - across the length of the bed and off the end, landing on his feet as his eyes started bleeding green. His body acted on its own, launching at Tony, a growl deep in his chest erupting as he made contact with a well-placed shoulder to Tony’s chest, shoving the man backward, hearing Tony lose the air in his lungs as he hit the wall with a plaster-breaking crunch.

“Secrets?” Bruce roared in Tony’s face, one forearm pressed hard against Tony’s chest, a knee pinning one of Tony’s legs to the wall. Tony flailed against Bruce with both arms, punching and shoving wherever he could reach, but Bruce simply took the punches, grunting, baring his teeth, glowing eyes boring into the face only inches from his own now. “You want to talk _secrets_?” That voice was dropping, changing, and the wall behind Tony was starting to give way.

Tony panicked, and his body acted on its own. Fueled by both fury and fear now, Tony brought his free leg up between Bruce’s, and the man buckled over with a grunt of pain. _Shit, shit, shit, I just kneed the Hulk_ , Tony thought, still fighting to get his breath back, and stumbled away from the wall toward the door, turning only when he felt he was reaching a safe distance, heard the sound of knees hitting the floor. But a hand lashed out as soon as Tony turned, snatching an ankle and pulling back sharply. Tony crashed to the floor, barely able to get his hands under him as he was jerked backward, head hitting the floor hard enough to blur his vision and send his mind reeling. He struggled aimlessly as big hands turned him over, forearms pinning elbows, knees crushing hips painfully. In a moment, Tony was spread out on the floor under Bruce, world spinning sickeningly as he tried to focus on a face torn with half a dozen emotions, a fight in its eyes.

“Secrets,” Bruce hissed, disgust settling in his expression. “Creatures like me don’t _get_ secrets.” He stayed there, staring down at Tony with dangerous eyes, his chest nearly touching Tony’s own, and that sense of danger, of doom, was back.

“I’m sorry,” Tony managed through a throat still fighting for air, desperate to find a way out of what was quickly becoming a deadly situation. “Bruce, don’t...”

A slow smile crawled across Bruce’s face, and he pushed Tony a little harder into the carpet. Tony shut up immediately as the man bent low to study his face, sniffing the air between them as heat shuddered across his skin, eyes moving toward a faint white, dangerous glow. “Bruce, please...” Tony begged, unable to move, arms and legs slowly going numb, not powerful enough to fight the greater strength above them.

Then, suddenly, Bruce let go, sat up and off Tony and scooted away a few feet, eyes startled and wide. The man who seemed ready to smash Tony once and for all a second before shivered once, curling into himself, then was on his feet and heading for the door.

Tony sat up, managing a real breath, though it hurt. “Bruce, wait,” he tried, watching the man’s back disappear. “I just want -”

“No,” Bruce interrupted, stopping, but not turning around. “You don’t _just_ want. Tony Stark never just _wants_. No, no - he _makes_ it happen.” He took an unsteady breath, glanced Tony’s way. “But not this time.” And with that, he walked away, stalking quietly on still-bare feet out of his rooms, leaving Tony alone.


	16. Chapter 16

He’d smelled like Pepper.

Bruce shoved hands deep in his pockets, absently following hallways he’d walked a hundred times, lost in his own thoughts. Tony had been under him, pinned, begging, and the air around him filled with Pepper’s scent. Bruce didn’t want to know that, didn’t want it to knot his insides like it did, didn’t like that part of his mind that wouldn’t let it go.

Tony had come into his room wearing Pepper’s scent, and something in Bruce _really_ hadn’t liked it. Whatever it was, it roiled even now, wanting to remind Tony about _priorities_ , about what really matters. Pepper didn’t matter, that part of him sneered. No - only their work, and the freedom it offered. _That’s_ what mattered; the rest was distraction.

Bruce’s heart picked up, thudding in his chest, the feeling he’d awakened to earlier rising fresh again on his skin, all heat and hunger and need. His hands curled in his pockets, wanting skin to grab, hurt, tear. Rend. _Claim_. He moved to the elevator quickly, pushing a button for ten floors down. No, twenty. Hands shook, and Bruce started to sweat, worry prickling his skin. He needed distance, far enough to keep himself away from the living quarters, especially those that he wanted to invade and overtake right now. 

“Jarvis, do me a favor and force me to take the stairs when I go back up,” Bruce announced as he stepped out into the darkened hall, running a hand through his hair nervously. “And...leave the lights off, please.” He needed dark and still and quiet.

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis responded. There was a pause, though, the elevator doors remaining open several seconds longer than usual, even when Bruce stepped out. “Sir, Mr. Stark asked me to keep him informed of your whereabouts. If you wish privacy - ”

Bruce groaned. Tony Stark. Tony _fucking_ Stark, always just a step behind, always reminding Bruce of his presence, his need to fix everything. There was no escaping the man and his incessant desire to intervene and tinker. “Look,” Bruce sighed, “I know you can’t keep him away, so - ”

“No, sir,” Jarvis interrupted uncharacteristically. “But I can - not hasten to inform him of your whereabouts. And perhaps let you know should he start this way.”

Bruce smiled just a bit - a brief reprieve. “Thanks,” he answered, grateful for Jarvis’ understanding. 

“Indeed,” Jarvis returned as all the lights on the floor switched off, leaving only emergency illumination. Bruce walked the hall, the sound of his footsteps echoing, and carefully reached inside to that part of him that had recoiled from Pepper’s scent on Tony, that hated Tony just long enough to almost hurt him. Again. A shudder rose on his skin as he did, cold and hard and certain and altogether alien, a sensation that threatened to spread the more he imagined Tony and Pepper in their rooms, talking about him, plotting, laughing at how they’d use him next... 

No. Bad. Thinking about Tony right now was...bad. Bruce shook his head to clear it of that sudden paranoia and got moving again, worried that such thoughts came so easily. There was a growing gnaw in his belly, far too close to what he felt in the first weeks following his accident, back when every nightfall brought the beast and every morning fresh guilt. He’d hurt so many people then, before the monster had become his fury, for reasons Bruce was only now starting to understand. The accident birthed that monster, yes, but even in those first days Bruce had suspected - and the Other Guy now agreed - that the thing inside had sought a target, a purpose, mutating until it found personality. A will. A reason to exist.

And now, on the heels of Tony storming into Bruce’s room, invading it with the scent of of someone else, another beast began to stir. It whispered along his skin, changing his body only the slightest amount, enough that Bruce felt only a slow swelling of muscles, a stretch of skin. A delicious, slow release of power into his limbs reminded him that he was stronger, and smarter, and better than Tony or anyone else could ever be. Pride swelled right along with his body, lighting his nerves with new hunger - to have, to take, to show how things should be done. To never again avoid or run. To take what is rightfully his own. To _fix_ everything that needed fixing, inside and out.

A voice followed the feeling, stuttering Bruce’s pace, bringing him to a halt. Strong and real and laughing in Bruce’s mind, it asked: _Why didn’t you finish what you started, Brucie boy?_ Something within pushed for release, spreading warmth in places Bruce didn’t want to feel it. Another laugh, and Bruce squeezed his eyes tight, trying to push the voice away, down into the depths with the Other Guy, who was howling now in frustration. But the voice was slippery, and didn’t want to go; it wanted out, wanted control, knew exactly what to do. Bruce felt power sliding into muscles, sweet and hot and reaching for release.

“Help,” Bruce said out loud, though he couldn’t tell why, or who he was asking. This felt too good, this new thing, and way too much of him wanted more of it. “No, _please_...” he managed, slumping against a wall and sliding, already feeling his will give way.

_HULK STRONGER THAN YOU_ , Bruce felt as much as heard, and sent his strength Hulk’s way as a battle for dominance began. 

***** 

Tony sat on the edge of Bruce’s bed, watching his own listless hands in his lap. _Come back_ , he kept thinking; _come back_. “Jarvis, keep me informed about Bruce’s whereabouts. And if he, you know, heads for an exit -” 

“I know the protocol, sir,” Jarvis responded. “He is, for the moment, wandering one of his more common paths through hallways several floors below.” 

Tony swallowed, more relieved than he wanted to admit. He just nodded; plenty of cameras for Jarvis to see and acknowledge the gesture. His hands didn’t want to do anything; his arms refused to lift. Legs, too, were on strike. So Tony fell back on the bed, stared at the ceiling that had been Bruce’s for months now, trying to get his thoughts back onto a track that made some kind of sense. 

In all the time they’d been there, working together in the tower or elsewhere, Bruce had never just walked out. He’d grumbled, complained, even out-and-out yelled - when, admittedly, Tony probably deserved it - but he’d never just walked out. Tony’s stomach was an empty pit as he considered the possibility that Bruce was angry enough to be done. To _leave._

Tony knew Bruce kept the duffel Natasha had given him after Thor and Loki’s departure hidden under his bed - two sets of clothes, two pair of sturdy shoes, and some money tucked inside. Tony looked for it every time he came into this room. It was there still now, dusty and zipped; he’d checked before he’d settled onto the bed, falling back and letting eyes wander the ceiling as he tried to figure out what Bruce needed now to feel safe, okay, at home. 

Dammit - Tony thought he’d figured life out in the past few months. The beautiful, sharp-as-a-tack girlfriend, the company that ran itself, the super-smart lab partner who also happened to be the biggest conundrum known to science - and one hell of a fascinating project for it. In love, industry, and friendship, he’d spent the entirety of the past year _solving_ problems rather than creating them - a hell of a track record for Tony Stark. 

_Wasn’t_ that what he and Bruce had been doing - solving the Hulk problem? Making the Big Guy less wild and dangerous, more wrecking ball than grenade? That had been the plan, at least - the overarching, all-consuming plan that had eaten their time, taxed their creativity, pushed them both to their limits and beyond. _And damnit_ , Tony thought, _I_ was _helping_ \- the Big Guy’s last appearance was proof. His destruction had been careful, even methodical - a controlled rampage, like Tony had been trying to encourage and support, so that even a a random Hulk attack was more tantrum than onslaught. Wasn’t that good? Wasn’t that _progress?_

So why wasn’t Bruce telling him everything? What was he hiding? _Why_? 

That feeling he’d encountered entering Bruce’s room, Tony knew, had come from Bruce. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he _knew_ , as sure as he knew he had bones and muscles and aches in a lot of them after being thrown into a wall a few minutes ago. Bruce shouldn’t have just walked out; he needed to know what Tony had come to tell him, and Tony needed to know why he’d reacted so badly. Screamed. Charged. Whatever the hell had happened.

Tony glared at the ceiling, angry that he didn’t understand the situation better. “Jarvis, report.” 

“He’s moved down to 77, sir. Still traversing common halls, though in a less...agitated fashion.” 

Some tension left Tony’s shoulders at that, and he started playing out the conversation they’d have when Bruce returned. Muttered stumbling apologies, if they even bothered; then Bruce would rub the back of his neck and explain whatever happened here, and Tony would fill him in on the fact that damned near every device that plugged into an AC outlet in this tower had been turned into a transmitter - at least, until Jarvis found a way to shut it all down. They’d get coffee, go to the lab, start helping Jarvis with the kind of ideas even the smartest AI on the planet couldn’t conceive, because they were _good_ together, _creative_ together, and... 

_Shitdamnfuck, Bruce_ , Tony thought, _come back_. He’d welcome Bruce calling him an ass, glowering at him, saying something as vicious as it was funny, the kind of thing that made Tony both cringe and laugh for the next week. He just needed for Bruce to come back, so he didn’t have to go after him. Because Tony was fairly sure if he started that chase, it would never end. 

“Sir?” Jarvis interrupted his thoughts, Tony’s eyes focusing again on the empty room. “I believe Dr. Banner is calling for you.” 


	17. Chapter 17

“Coulda done something with your life, Brucie boy.”

The man wore stained pajamas and a torn terrycloth robe; Bruce knew he shouldn’t feel intimidated or ashamed, but both bloomed in him anyway. He sat there in his good suit, coat folded in his lap, wondering why he’d agreed to this meeting in the first place. Nothing good could come of it, and being here was torture. But that dirty man was still...Dad, and part of Bruce couldn’t help but want to see him happy. Proud. Okay.

“I did. I am.” Bruce hated that he answered that insult, that part of him actually hastened to find words to stave off displeasure. He winced inwardly as the man scratched his beard, leaned back, and laughed. He recognized the lines around that mouth, tracing the same patterns as those that surrounded his own. _At least I have Mother’s eyes_ , he thought, and immediately regretted it.

“Lab monkey,” Bruce’s father replied, “mopping up the stink left by those who came before.” He snorted, spat into a nearby trashcan, scratching the stubble on his throat with his knuckles. “Doesn’t sound like much to me, kid. I made you to do _better_.”

_You probably made me in a drunken haze while calling her a dirty whore_ , Bruce wanted to spit back, but his voice had no power here, and he knew it. No sense giving the man the satisfaction. He folded his coat tighter, kept looking at it, as he heard his father lean forward and felt the man’s scrutiny.

“Figure - two months out, I could have your life turned around, all fixed up. Better job, better woman, better clothes...” He snorted again, aging face twisting as he cackled. “Couldn’t do worse, you little milktoast.”

“You can _have_ the house, Dad. I don’t care.” Bruce’s eyes glanced down at the papers sitting on the table between them. “All signed and notarized. Just take them, and your doctors can handle the rest.”

The man pursed his lips, and Bruce recognized the look, one he shared when thoughtful. He wanted to claw his own lips off, just to never wear it again. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind...” Dad drawled, tapping lips with one finger as he sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “Season’s turning. Better offers.”

Bruce fumed silently, twisting his coat in his hands. “Fine,” he managed finally, snatching up the papers suddenly, standing up. “Take them. We’re done here.” His anger bled through in his voice, and his father’s eyes lit with interest before Bruce managed to turn himself away.

The older Banner laughed again, and the sound coiled in the pit of Bruce’s stomach, reminding him of the dozen dozen times it had preceded violence. “Oh, I will, boy. You just keep an eye out; I’ll be ‘round to fix up your life real soon.”

Bruce stormed out of the memory, feelings bleeding away along with the scenery. Soon, he was surrounded by blankness, a faded space made of little more than impressions of buildings and streets and cars that must have once existed. He couldn’t place them, didn’t recognize the memory of a sidewalk his feet found naturally and followed as the world solidified. Around a corner, he took the third door on the right, and the bell dangling from a string in the ceiling jingled as he entered.

There wasn’t anyone here - never was this time in the afternoon, when the rest of the kids weren’t out of school yet and the lunch crowd had gone. Bruce pulled himself onto one of the tall metal stools bolted to the floor in front of the old soda fountain and waited for Mrs. Reed to come out of the back, wiping her hands down the front of her skirt before she’d smile wide and ruffle his hair and give him an ice cream.

She didn’t come.

A fine coating of dust had settled on the countertop. Bruce’s little hands left prints, and he passed the time drawing in it. Turkey. Doggie paw. Leopard spots. Dinosaur. Three trees, and still no Mrs. Reed, no scoop of strawberry with caramel sauce. He sighed, and dust flew up around him.

“Hello?” he called, but the echo made Bruce feel like the place had been empty for a thousand years. That made his heart hurt and move too fast, and he suddenly didn’t want ice cream any more. He wanted out, wanted home, even though it wasn’t happier or safer. At least it wasn’t empty.

“I hear you, boy,” a voice came from the floor on the other side of the counter, deep and gravelly. Bruce jumped and almost fell off the stool, his little feet scrambling to snag on the footrest and keep him upright. The owner of the voice stood up, huge and muscled, wiping grimy hands on a grimier towel. His shirt was sweat- and dirt-stained, one side of dark overalls falling off a massive shoulder. “I help ya?” The face, the swell of those biceps, was familiar, but Bruce couldn’t figure out why.

Bruce shook his little head, but the man was smiling now and stretching across the counter, leaning on big, hairy forearms to look the boy right in the face. “Hey, yeah, I know you - you’re that Banner kid, right?” He chuckled, nodding. “People here say you’re pretty smart for your age.” Bruce just nodded, being as polite as he could be to his elder when his heart was thudding in his chest and his lungs didn’t want to expand. 

“Smart enough to count to a hundred?” the man asked, bringing a little smile to Bruce’s lips. “Really?” the man answered that look, scratching his chin. “Hm. How about...smart enough to make up a bunch of numbers that add up to it?”

Bruce smiled a little more and drew four numbers in the dust: 15. 62. 20. 3. While the man was counting on his fingers, he added another line: 33, 12, 26, 29. The big face broke into a huge grin, and the man laughed and clapped his hands together, loud enough to make Bruce jump again.

“Ha HA! Well, that’s just fan-freakin’-tastic, kid!” He patted Bruce on the shoulder, and it kind of hurt and kind of felt nice, and Bruce suddenly found himself hoping the man had the key to the ice cream freezer. Maybe it would be okay after all to wait here for Mom, so he didn’t have to go home to Dad alone. He kicked little feet and felt hope rise as the man stood up more fully, setting down his towel to press meaty hands into the dusty countertop.

“Now,” the man said, still chuckling. “Lemme ask just one more question.” Bruce nodded assent as the guy leaned in, close enough that Bruce could smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath, the look in those gray eyes snuffing that glimmer of hope he’d felt. Bruce swallowed hard, feeling himself shrink, wanting to disappear.

The man chuckled, eying Bruce up and down. “So, tell me: you smart enough to know when to get out the way?”

*****

Seventeen seconds after the alarm sounded, Clint had the target location mapped in his mind. He’d memorized the tower, didn’t need the indicator that blinked Bruce’s potential location every second or so. But he did listen to the thing for changes, fluctuations up or down in the gamma signature Bruce and Tony had mapped to the device from the data his arrow had collected. None came, which worried him - the device was stuck at _WARNING_ , not going up, not going down. So either Stark built a piece of shit, which was unlikely, or...it wasn’t the Hulk. Another gamma monster, maybe, or something that had Bruce enough on edge that he couldn’t calm down. Either way, it meant the spies had made their move before he’d expected it.

Clint imagined half a dozen scenarios as he dove down the stairs, just in case they had control of the AI that ran the elevators. Bruce cornered, fighting the change; Bruce drugged in mid-transformation, stuck; maybe even Bruce bleeding, causing the initial spike in radiation that had set off the device. A gamma trap, maybe, that kept Bruce frozen, unable to flee. Or something else that had infected itself like Bruce, something less...controlled.

Fifty-one seconds after the alarm sounded, Clint hit the darkened level and moved toward the destination the device had highlighted. The floor was still and empty, making silence difficult, but Clint was practiced; he ghosted along the walls, bow at the ready, listening for even the slightest sound of movement. A moment later, he heard it, closer than expected - Bruce’s voice, a little deeper than normal, murmuring something unintelligible. 

Sprinting now, Clint cleared the last corner, an arrow pointing into a space that proved to be empty. Bruce was on the floor, curled in on himself, the sounds from his throat not quite words. A quick check told Clint that the man wasn’t bleeding, hadn’t been shot or hit with any tranquilizer darts, and didn’t seem to be fighting the change. If anything, Clint thought, he looked less coiled than usual, despite the muttering, actually somehow a little...calmer. More focused. 

Tony told Clint on that plane ride back from Utah that Bruce had nightmares, that sometimes they sent him wandering. Maybe that’s what this was. Clint looked carefully over all the rest of the entrances to this space. No struggle. No spent casings. Only one set of prints in the dusty floor, matching Bruce’s shoes. There were no signs anyone else had been on this floor in a while. Maybe...maybe there hadn’t been a move. Maybe it was nothing but Bruce’s bad dream.

“Jarvis,” Clint started, “give me all the readings you have for this floor for the past two -”

“Don’t think so,” Bruce nearly growled, on his feet faster than Clint anticipated. Clint pulled back just a second too late to avoid the fist that smashed into his face and drove him into the wall, and he caught a glimpse of flashing gray eyes and a cruel smirk before the world went black.

*****

Tony didn’t exactly rush to floor 77. Jarvis had sent a feed to his handheld, and he watched Bruce talk to himself, slumped against the wall. Even amplified, Bruce’s voice wasn’t really intelligible. He’d said Tony’s name a couple of times, and something about Pepper, but most words weren’t fully formed, just murmurs of something else going on inside his head.

The suit was ready, and Tony could be in it in six seconds.

Tony locked all the entrances and exits to the floor; he’d seen Bruce like this before, and it never ended well. When the man started talking to himself, something was talking back, and that usually meant a fight, one that Bruce didn’t always win. It had been a long time since he’d seen such a display, though, and couldn’t help regretting their altercation earlier, certain it added to the stress that was taking Bruce down now.

Pepper’s voice startled him. “Tony, what’s going on? Where are you?” She appeared on the handheld, bleary-eyed and rumpled.

“Potential security breach,” he answered quickly, keeping his own video feed off. There was a bruise blossoming on his forehead where he’d gone down hard, and he didn’t want to have to explain it yet. “I’m just checking it out. Back soon; you sleep.”

Pepper frowned. “You have two dozen security staff on duty, Tony. Can’t you let them –“

“ _No_ , Pepper, I can’t,” Tony snapped back, trying to ignore the look of indignation that crossed her face, the sudden tightness around her lips. “It’s –“

“Right,” Pepper responded. “I know,” and the feed cut off before he could say anything else.

God, could the night get any worse? Tony’s head throbbed, making it hard to think, and the two closest people in his life were at his throat, and something was going on – _again_ – with Bruce. Oh, and the very real security breach, that Bruce didn’t know about yet, which…

“Sir,” his handheld spoke up, getting his attention. The background lit up a bit more, and he watched Clint round the corner, spy Bruce, and approach him cautiously – though not cautiously enough. A moment later, he flew through the air and hit the far wall with an audible crack, sliding bonelessly to the floor. Bruce’s face remained in shadow, but the fist that had risen and caught Clint was framed in light, bigger than Bruce’s own hands, skin paled to almost ashen. The chuckle that emerged from the shadows was a sound Tony had never heard from Bruce before, dark with the promise of more violence to come.

“Tony fucking Stark,” the voice came from the shadows, thicker and deeper than Bruce’s own, the body on the floor starting to stand and stretch, seeming to grow right in front of the camera. “We have unfinished business, you and I…and the little lady.” Eyes that glowed grayish white blinked open, and a huge, malicious grin opened on a face that had twisted and contorted from Bruce’s own, but still held the features both he and Hulk shared.

Whatever stood there wasn’t Hulk. And it wasn’t Bruce, either. This…was something new.

“Suit, Jarvis,” Tony asked quietly. “Now.”


	18. Chapter 18

Little Bruce huddled where he’d been thrown, hiding as best he could next to the newspaper display, trying his best to be invisible. His shoulder where the stranger had grabbed him hurt bad, as did his back where it had hit the middle of the display before his body bounced off onto the floor. He could hear two big crazy things fighting up at the counter, but he kept huddled tight, not looking, not making a sound.

There were monsters out there.

Dad would tell him that he was just being a stupid kid, that he was giving in to magical thinking. Seeing monsters meant an evening in the cellar or locked in the closet without light, Dad yelling at him about facing his fucking fears and not being such a pussy about it. He didn’t want to be a pussy about it, but the big gray one had picked him up and thrown him across the room, and it had hurt, and hurting always made it harder to not-believe.

_You’re not real_ , he thought hard hard hard from his hiding place, listening to the green monster roar, the gray monster laugh, and he wished he could be even smaller than he already was, even as the tiniest boy in class.

“Oh, we’re very real, boy,” the big gray one’s voice boomed above the green howl, the sound of fists impacting flesh. Bruce remembered those big gray eyes locking on him from behind the counter, asking him if he was smart enough to move out of the way just before the other one had crashed through the wall and a fight had begun. “Maybe realer than you at this point. Ever think of that?” Something big and heavy broke, and Bruce winced and curled deeper.

“That’s it, boy; hide, curl away like the little wimp you are.” The voice laughed, the kind of laugh Dad used before he took Mom away to the bedroom. “Just stay there while I dispatch this stupid…lug…” His voice strained for a moment, and everything became grunts for way too long. Then there was a big groan and a heavy thud as the floor bounced under his feet.

And the boy hiding in that shadowy corner was suddenly more afraid than he’d ever been in his entire little life.

A great gray eye appeared around the corner, followed by a hand that snatched up his whole arm and jerked him out of his hiding place. “Come on, boy. Time to teach you a lesson about who’s boss.”

*****

Clint didn’t answer.

Pepper tried him three times, but Clint’s comm gave her nothing but dead air, and Bruce’s room was empty. She threw on clothes hurriedly, both irritated that her homecoming had been so rudely interrupted and worried that, if all three men were nowhere to be found, something bad really was happening.

“Jarvis, can you see them?”

“Yes ma’am,” came the immediate reply. “And I believe the situation dangerous enough to warrant a warning; I urge you to stay away, Miss Potts. Please.”

Pepper blinked, paused in buttoning her shirt. Jarvis saying please put ice in her veins. “Show me,” she said, quietly, perching carefully at the edge of the bed, across from her room display. 

“I might suggest, Miss Potts, that -”

“ _Show me_ , Jarvis,” she repeated, lips pursing. A moment of silence followed before the display lit up, and a voice Pepper didn’t recognize emerged from it. “Tony fucking Stark,” it said, and Pepper’s hand went to her mouth as the thing speaking stepped out of the shadows. She was on the phone before he even finished talking.

******

Ah. That single, solid punch to that idiot’s face had felt good. Had felt...real. He kicked the crumpled body into a corner, pulling off what remained of his own shirt. No point in wearing tatters; he’d find appropriate clothes soon enough, when he was certain he had the control he’d worked so hard to wrest from the others. They were buried inside now, too lost to fight - cowards, the lot. So easy to take over once he siphoned off enough power to pull together his own form.

“If you know what’s good for you,” he murmured toward the prone man who still wasn’t stirring, “you’ll stay unconscious.” He stretched gray arms toward the ceiling, felt muscles ripple under his skin, revelled in physicality. He’d waited far, far too long for this.

“Told you I could fix your life, boy,” the thing fairly growled, turning eyes toward the nearest display, conjuring a keyboard with a wave of his hand. “Time to get started.” He cracked his knuckles, grinned at the screen, and got to work. Jarvis fought the override, but really, he’d set the virus ages ago, and there would be no hiding the information he intended to seize. He already knew where to find it; Bruce couldn’t hide it from him. He had logins, passwords, secret pathways, and a hundred methods of overriding security he’d broken, literally, in Bruce’s sleep. He was sure some people would pay impressive sums for a glimpse of a tenth of that research, once he was done with it.

“Got it,” he said aloud, grinning wide. Easy as pie. Bruce never could hide anything from him.

“Come on, cupid,” the gray-skinned being grunted as the screen blanked out and disappeared. “We got a date with an old friend.”

*****

That awful gray thing reached down toward Clint with a giant hand, and Tony just couldn’t stay quiet. “You might seriously think about just giving Bruce back before this all gets ugly,” he called through his comm to the thing that had taken his friend’s place. He watched that eerily familiar face frown, arms crossing over a bulging, hairy chest and glowering in the direction of a camera feed. At least he’d stopped whatever he’d intended to do to Clint. Tony let the man’s crumpled form fuel his anger as he hurtled down the stairwell to 77. 

The creature barked laughter a moment later, shoulders bouncing, as Tony picked up the pace. “Ever considered he might not _want_ to come back?” he answered, glowering around the hallway. One of the walls in the room rattled as he punched it hard enough to crack, to interrupt the feed from the camera within, and Tony’s display switched automatically to another view. “You treat him like a toy,” the thing nearly growled, “like a glorified _lab rat_. At your beck and call, 24/7, so you can question him, torture him, bleed him for your amusement.” It sniffed as Tony flew toward it, spat on the ground. “Sick of it, pretty boy.”

Iron Man shot out of the stairwell into the corridor on 77, Tony snarling inside the suit. “Get the feeling you don’t really speak for Bruce, grayskin. Give him back.” He gave a little more power to the thrusters, both hands stretched out in front of him as he maneuvered around a corner, giving him a straight path toward his target. 

A slow grin spread across that face on Tony’s screen as it turned toward the sound of thrusters. “Come on, then,” it snarled, lifting a hand and curling fingers toward itself. “Cut us open and drag him out yourself.” Big gray hands clenched, ready for battle.

Tony hit him full-force in the chest with a repulsor, driving him through the wall behind him and into the room beyond before landing with a loud clang in the hole it left behind. “I said: Give. Him. Back.”

A chuckle, low and mean, came from that pile of rubble. “Oh, Stark...I just got out. I’ve got no intention of going away so soon.” The thing sat up, gray skin mottled with plaster and concrete dust. “That little fucker’s messed up enough, along with his big green friend. Time I fixed their mess.”

Tony took two menacing steps forward. “Banner doesn’t need you,” he shot back, lifting his arms and aiming every weapon on them that gray thing’s way. “So last chance, Mr. Fix-It: step out of the way, or I will carve my friend out of your flesh.”

A cold smile spread those thick, pale lips. “Good name. Think I’ll borrow it.” And with that, he launched himself toward Tony, both fists in front of him. 

******

Hulk fails. Hulk falls.

One thing to face Bad outside. Bad inside harder. Hulk warned and warned, tried to show. Banner never saw, until too late. Bad inside gets stronger when Hulk is out. Strong enough now to hurt. To ruin.

This Bad, Hulk can’t smash. It knows Hulk’s thoughts, plans. Moves before Hulk swings. Laughs when Hulk misses. “I _made_ you, boy,” Bad snarls, and wraps fingers around Hulk’s throat. 

Stares Hulk in eyes when Bad squeezes, and Hulk can’t breathe. Can’t roar. Can’t fight. “And I know just how to break you. Like old times, huh?” The Bad squeezes harder, and feeling is worse this time, because Hulk is big now, not like before. Not helpless. Huge.

But Bad stares Hulk in eyes, and Hulk can’t move.

“That’s it,” Bad says as Hulk falls to a knee. Climbs onto Hulk’s back and squeezes harder. “Go down like the little bitch you are,” it mocks, and the whole world fades into that horrible color that marks the thing taking him down...

Gray.

******

“Oh, good, so you’re close,” Pepper said into the phone. “Please, the faster the better.” She hung up fast, clutching the phone to her chest as she watched that strange gray beast work away on one of Jarvis’ displays. The AI protested: “I’m afraid he has all the passcodes and clearance; though I want to lock him out, I find myself unable to do so, and Mr. Stark is...occupied. Do you have orders, Miss Potts?”

Pepper nodded. “Don’t stand in his way, Jarvis; let him find what he wants.” She toyed with her phone, giving her fingers something to do as she chewed her lip, mind racing. “And make sure Tony knows what it is.”

Not home eight hours after three months away, and here they were in crisis, and Pepper was left facing it alone, the boys lost in their own battles. She wrapped her robe around herself more tightly, refusing to ask Jarvis to try Tony again. No reason to do so; he was en route, a fact she knew without having to confer with Jarvis. She could practically feel his blood boiling to think of another thing gone wrong with Bruce, his newest obsession, his latest plaything. Worse than the playgirls and the rich daughters and the famous gorgeous journalists, because Bruce was earnest, needed help, and genuinely liked Tony. And Pepper, and the tower, and the life that had slowly startled settling around him. Sometimes, he even smiled.

Part of her wanted to hate Bruce, push him away and out of the tower. But the rest of her knew Tony would only chase, and that would just make things worse. Things were already bad now; something new had emerged from under Bruce’s skin, something much more hateful, and Tony even now was rushing to face it, save his latest project. His newest friend.

Iron Man appeared in the image, knocking the big thing away from the screen and through the wall behind him, sending rubble collapsing on top of Clint’s still-limp body. And Pepper made her decision.

*****

Tony wasn’t ready for the speed this new creature possessed; he wasn’t a wrecking ball like the Hulk. No, he could turn in midair and change tactics, smaller and faster and more lithe than his big green counterpart. Tony thrust hard to his left, but it did him no good; Mr. Fix-It just turned in midair and snatched up one of his ankles, using the suit’s own momentum to bring Tony whirling around and into the nearest wall. He went clean through it and bounced off the next wall behind, grunting in surprise and sudden pain.

“Been studying you for months, Tin Man,” Fix-It chuckled as he stepped through the hole the suit had left, gray eyes fixing on Tony. “Know your every move. Back off now, and I _won’t_ beat the crap out of you." Six tiny missiles exploded in his face in response, and he howled fury.

“Best you got, wannabe?” Tony shot back, on his feet again, launching into the air. His ears were still ringing from the force of that impact, but he’d fought through much worse for less reason. “May as well give the body back to the other two; you’re outclassed.”

A loud laugh erupted. Fix-It threw his head back with it, grin spreading across his face. “Intimidation, Stark? That the best you can offer?” He flexed fists, teeth grinding. “Boy, you got no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“Let me guess,” Tony said, gaining altitude in the vast-ceilinged space, “Banner’s self-loathing? Hulk’s lack of self-discipline? Some shit-faced gray-skinned guilt complex who found a way to manifest?” The thing roared and tossed a chunk of wall Tony’s way fast, but not fast enough - he blasted it out of the air with a repulsor and snarled, the sound carried through the suit’s speakers. “You’re a _blip_. A mistake,” Tony spat as Jarvis readied the unibeam, bringing it to full power. “A never-should-have-been.”

Fix-It just snarled back, thumping his chest. “Bring it, genius. Let’s see you blast me out of existence.” He listened to the beam power up, made no move to get out of its path. Despite the mask Tony wore, he worked hard to make clear contact, eye-to-eye, with the man beneath. “I’ve got no issue with dying. Been ready since this bastard was _birthed_ to bring him to an end. So go on.” He stood up taller, proud, ready.

Tony hesitated, which was all Fix-It needed.

“Now!” he shouted, fisting a piece of rubble and tossing it Tony’s direction. A dozen lasers from walls and ceiling targeted it as it flew, and Tony knew for the first time how compromised Jarvis and the tower had become. He barely had time to raise his arms before the rubble exploded in his face, lasers cutting through the air, continuing through metal and flesh. Jarvis was loud and present, and another voice screamed his name, but he didn’t have the capacity to understand, much less respond. Tony’s body lit with pain, exploded with it, right before the darkness closed in.

*****

Bruce screamed and kicked and punched and bit, but the big scary man didn’t let go of his arm. He only jerked harder, and that hurt enough that this time Bruce’s scream was more pain than fear. It didn’t help that the man holding him grinned wide at that; it made Bruce’s whole body cold, and he wanted to curl into himself and hide, disappear someplace where the man couldn’t find him.

“No place left to hide in here,” the big man responded, as if reading the boy’s mind. He dragged Bruce across the dusty floor back towards those barstools bolted into the floor, tossed him at one of them. Bruce’s back hit the metal hard, and he couldn't help but wail, tears springing to his eyes. It hurt in that way that only promised more hurt to follow.

The man chuckled and bent down, shoving Bruce hard against the metal foot of the stool, handling him roughly until he was facing a great green crumpled mass a few feet away, nearly buried in what remained of the front counter. “Big protector,” the man scoffed, grabbing Bruce’s chin and forcing him to pay attention to the limp form barely breathing on the floor. A big hand reached over to a broken display and snatched up a metal support. “Went down like a pussy.” He put that support behind the stool and strained, staring the boy down as metal gave under his strength, curling slowly until it encircled the child, who felt small and terrified and more alone than he’d ever been. Bruce didn’t even try to wiggle; he knew there was no escape. Not without the Other Guy. Not without his protection.

The man bent down into Bruce’s face, close enough that Bruce could smell the Other Guy’s blood on his shirt. “Little Brucie figures it out,” the man murmured, laughing softly. He put a hand toward Bruce’s head, and only laughed harder when Bruce winced away. Thick fingers rustled Bruce’s hair. “And here I thought your brains had already leaked out. Now be a good boy, and _stay_. Fix-It’s got work to do.”


	19. Chapter 19

The helicopter landed just long enough to deposit two women before taking off again. Pepper stood waiting by the doorway and ushered them in quickly.

“Thank you for coming,” Pepper noted to the taller, darker-haired woman as she offered her a hand. “We should have had you to the tower long ago. I’m sorry it’s taken this to bring you here.”

“It’s fine,” Betty Ross answered, tone not matching her words as she shook Pepper’s hand a bit too roughly. “I know how important it is for Bruce to...stay invisible.” She followed Pepper down the stairs into the penthouse, refusing the woman’s polite offer of coffee or a drink, taking in the space in which Bruce had spent what must be nearly a year now, maybe more. Part of her wanted to ask if Bruce had tried to find a way to connect with her, but she didn’t want to hear the truth. He hadn’t; she knew. 

Natasha sized up the situation quietly. Betty was on edge, stiff, keeping herself quiet by force of will and a fist pressed against her right thigh. She saw signs of Bruce even here, and her eyes paused on them: a moleskin that could have been his, a set of very worn walking shoes at the foot of the stairs; the stupid cap he used to hide his eyes in his few forays into public. Natasha watched the memories change Betty’s face, but kept quiet about what she saw. It was intimate, after all, and not immediately pertinent to the mission.

Pepper, on the other hand, was still in a robe, barefoot, eyes reddened from tears, though she kept her composure. Her hands shook just enough that Natasha noticed, and she played with the bow in her belt without being aware. None of these were good signs.

“What happened to Tony?” Natasha asked, not surprised when Pepper’s pacing came to a sudden halt, those red-rimmed eyes turning toward her. “I’m trained for this,” she reminded Pepper gently, giving Betty a glance when a loud crunch came from below.

“I don’t know,” Pepper admitted, curling her fingers together. “Jarvis went offline, taking the cameras with him, right after I heard him...scream...” She wrung her hands, then forced them apart and into the pockets of her robe.

“How?” Betty asked before Natasha could, looking between them both. “Did the Hulk manage to destroy some essential -”

“It isn’t the Hulk,” Pepper interrupted, running a hand through her hair, suddenly aware of the trembling in her fingers. 

Betty looked confused. “But...on the phone, you said -”

“- that we needed your skills in talking him down. And we do.” Pepper glanced at Natasha, whose face remained carefully neutral. “It’s just...not the Hulk.” 

A screen on the wall behind the bar lit suddenly. “Think she means it’s _me_ , sweet,” a voice came before any of them could even fully turn that direction. A large, gray, muscled figure grinned for the camera, gave it a wink. “Nice of you ladies to drop in. Saves me a couple of calls.”

“I am sorry, madam,” Jarvis stated flatly. “I could no longer keep him out of my -”

“Shut it, Jeeves,” the creature snarled, hitting a few keys on a laptop. Jarvis went silent again, and the camera remained on the thing as it laughed and patted his own back. “Gotta admit, I’m proud of this little hacking program. Couldn’t’ve done it without Tony’s help. He must really love that little shit to give him _so much access_...”

“Where’s Tony?” Pepper demanded, arms crossing over her chest. “What did you do to him?”

The thing on camera grinned, slow and wicked, and Pepper shuddered. “Wasn’t me,” he said, adjusting the camera. It jittered and moved to settle on a red and gold mess on the floor, pieces of the suit simply sheared off and scattered about, no sign of Tony anywhere. “But your e-butler’s gonna have some big Daddy guilt when he’s got control of himself again.” Pepper covered her mouth to keep from shouting obscenities, and that only got Fix-It grinning more. “Got your boy, peaches - all your boys, in fact - and you’d best believe I’m not above tearing all their arms off if you send that little red-headed assassin down here.” He moved the camera again to show Clint and Tony, piled on top of one another. Clint’s face dripped blood; Tony’s undersuit was in tatters, scorch marks obvious on his skin. Neither of them moved.

“Listen here, you son of a bitch,” Pepper started, eyes blazing. “I can have the Hulkbuster squad here in under two -”

“No!” Betty cried, shaking her head. “They don’t even want to capture him any more; they just want to kill him.” She didn’t want to say it, but she had to; her father had gone over the edge, dealing with mercenaries and dictator-led militaries to gain the might to take her former fiance down. “They wouldn’t stop - not for any reason. We can’t trust them.”

“True,” the gray-skinned thing added. “They’re out for blood. Ever since they found out about your boyfriend’s lab bromance, they’ve been _itching_ to get into this tower and all the information your boyfriends have assembled.” He reached into the pile and grabbed Tony’s arm, jerking him off the floor and slinging his unconscious body over a shoulder. “Don’t worry, though; I’ve kept them at bay this long, and pretty soon, they won’t _have_ a Hulk to worry about any more.” He patted a bare and muscled chest with his free hand. “Banner and his pet have fucked things up long enough. I’m here to do this _right_.”

Tony groaned, and Fix-It shook him until he went silent again. Pepper squeezed her fists together tight enough draw blood with fingernails.

“Bruce, please, if you’re in there, help us understand what’s happening.” Betty paced up to the screen, looking for where the camera might be that broadcast them back to this new creature. “What _caused_ this?”

Fix-It laughed again as he reached for Clint, tossing him up over the other shoulder. Clint vomited down the thing’s back, which earned him a shake and some colorful cursing. “What _caused_ this, lady, is your milktoast ex and his big green buddy trying to give peace a chance.” He rolled his eyes. “Focusing so much on making this body safe around others that they took their eyes off what made it dangerous to begin with.” He grunted, shifting the load on his shoulders until it was comfortable. “They were making a mess of things, so I came ‘round to fix them up. And now that I’m here, I’m planning on staying.”

A big grin parted pale lips, exposing teeth in what was almost a snarl. “Now,” he said, staring into the camera again, “here’s what you three lovelies are gonna do for me if you ever want to see any of these men in one piece again.”

******

The world was thick and heavy and slow, and Clint’s head felt both swollen and soft. He tried to open his eyes, but the world rippled and swam enough that his stomach churned, and he couldn’t afford to throw up. Not now; not with a serious threat still close, heavy footsteps echoing as he moved back and forth, murmuring to himself.

Clint had moments of near-clarity; once, he heard Iron Man’s repulsors, clear and close. Someone screamed. The world shook and moved, and he coughed and spat as his face met the ground unceremoniously. He heard radios. Things moved far too fast for him to track, and his head refused to stop its sickening spiral. Stars flashed every time he tried to open his eyes; he couldn’t tell up from down, and his limbs refused to take orders.

The world turned upside-down a moment later as Clint was lifted and slung over a shoulder, and he couldn’t hold the contents of his stomach then. They spilled down a giant back, making Clint chuckle. _Take that_ , he thought, as something snarled and shook him until his head screamed. “Fucking _ass_ ,” it said in a voice Clint didn’t recognize, and slapped him hard enough on the back to knock the breath out of him, make the world gray out again.

Vaguely, in that daze, Clint wondered if his skull had fractured with that blow, if his brain was slowly swelling and killing itself. He tried to reach to his back, find his bow, but his hands simply flopped uselessly. The world was far too slow to come back into focus, and his thoughts kept slipping away.

Gray skin, a face that wasn’t Bruce’s....and a fist bigger than his head, knocking him back. Clint’s ears still rang with the force of that blow, and he couldn’t get his legs underneath him. 

“Stay down, cupid,” that big voice boomed down at him, and Clint froze in his efforts to try and move away. The thing above him chuckled, low and dark, and put what felt like a giant foot on his back, pushing him back into the gravel and tar.

*****

“Wake up,” Bruce begged, wriggling hard, but getting nowhere against the iron bar bent around his body. “Please wake up.” He was afraid of the huge green muscled beast crumpled into the remains of the pharmacy aisles, but he was even more afraid of the _other_ Other that had stalked out minutes before, locking the door behind him, leaving them both trapped inside. He could smell something thick and dangerous in the air, getting stronger and closer, making his head swim. “Please!” He kicked his feet in the giant’s direction, but couldn’t get close, couldn’t touch him. A big part of him didn’t want to touch that green skin, either, so it didn’t help that he was fighting himself.

The big creature didn’t move. Didn’t stir an inch.

**_“No!”_** Bruce screamed and wriggled and fought to break free, hot tears on his cheeks. He hadn’t felt so little and useless for a long time. “Mister - oh, mister, _please_...get up! He wants to kill us off!”

Smoke joined the scent in the air, and Bruce froze. Oh, no. No, no no. Not the fire. He couldn’t face that, couldn’t see what...what...”

_MUST_ , a voice came, echoing through the busted store. Huge and booming and demanding, louder than Bruce’s own, louder than the roars of the green thing that lay still and silent out of his reach. _LOOK_ , it demanded. _SEE_.

Little Bruce shook his head side to side, faster and faster, but it didn’t stop the world from growing warm as his skin prickled cold, and it couldn’t stop the flood of memories that rushed in with that voice, carried to his core.

*****

“Treat it as a threat level five,” Fury barked at the screen, “and clear the damned skies.” Talking to air traffic control in New York City was often frustrating, but tonight he’d had the misfortune of contacting O’Reilly, the most rules-mongery of all the supervisors. He rambled on about steps and protocol while Fury paced, Romanov still on hold on another line. “Well, I don’t care about Section 25, paragraph 12. Your boss’s boss reports to a woman who reports to a team that I hand-picked, son, so do what I _fucking tell you_ , or I’ll get them all on the phone chewing your ass from here to Wednesday.”

He breathed relief when, a few pregnant seconds later, all commercial and private planes were ordered to land and stay put.

Fury stopped in front of another display and brought it back to life. “Clear,” he told his agent, who nodded her head only a fraction and turned on her heel to leave. The other two women remained, though, looking at him, waiting for...what? Orders? Reassurance? This was a _hostage_ situation, for Christ’s sake, and - 

“Mr. Fury, sir?” Ross’s daughter asked, bringing his thoughts to a halt. “What do you plan to do to Bruce?” Big eyes looked back at him through the monitor, filled with a myriad emotions that all tore at his heart and made him want to shut off the display. “He’s...he’s not responsible - “

“Our preference is that Doctor Banner returns, in control and unharmed, Miss Ross.” Fury’s voice was flat, unemotional, as he shut down that part of himself that responded to those needy eyes, the wringing hands. “But SHIELD is prepared to do whatever is necessary to safely retrieve its agent and consultant.”

Pepper’s face grew larger suddenly. “Fury, listen to me carefully. You strike at whatever that nasty gray thing is, and I guarantee you that Tony will turn his back on you - on the Avengers, on your R&D, on all those little subversive missions where you’ve used Stark tech to -”

“I _hear_ you, Miss Potts,” Fury interrupted, rubbing his face with a gloved hand. “And I will do what I can. But you have to admit, this is a hell of a fucking development. You have any idea how much Tony’s tinkering has to do with it?”

“Tony’s...tinkering?” Betty turned eyes to Pepper, who sighed with exasperation. She gave Betty a look that made it clear that it was a long story, and Betty swallowed hard. “Fill me in on the way, then.”

“Yes, on the way,” Pepper agreed quickly, nodding fast. She turned back to the monitor, back to Fury’s studied gaze. “We appreciate your help, sir.” 

“Keep me posted,” Fury managed to respond before Pepper turned off the feed, and he turned over the situation in his head. Barton down - possibly for good, considering the footage. Iron Man out of commission. Hulk...what? Did Hulk still exist? Or Banner, for that matter? This was left field stuff, Fury thought, the kind of thing he only planned for in the very back of his mind, in the most secret of secret places. This was the kind of shit he didn’t even write down; he just pondered, memorized options and weighed outcomes, recited them in his head before bed, on waking. Worst case scenario plans that he prepared for without ever letting anyone know what they were doing was preparation.

Fury opened his comm to officers only. “Ready sequence 2-oh-5-oh-7, everyone. And prepare our west coast teams.”

*****

Pepper knew better than to hope that Tony was okay. He _wasn’t_ okay. He’d been covered in burns and other wounds, and she couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. Her heart lurched as she got out of her robe and into the first actual clothes she set hands on - a fucking suit set, but she didn’t care. She threw on the pants and the shirt, leaving off the jacket, and snatched up the only pair of flats in her closet, damning the fact that she kept all her sneakers in the gym. “Jarvis, remind me that I’m an idiot about clothing when we get back,” she murmured, forgetting just how many microphones had been set into the tower.

“I would say you have impeccable taste, Miss Potts. Though, in the future, we can certainly plan your closet more appropriately to prepare for rescue missions. I will begin creating a list of -”

“Do that,” Pepper answered, cutting the AI off. No need to waste time. “Are the jets ready?”

“Indeed. The gray creature is already inside his. Enjoying a glass of bourbon, I might add. He seems....pleased,” he noted, voice tinged with displeasure. “Estimate takeoff in three minutes, fourteen seconds.”

Pepper’s eyes went hard. “Make sure we get air no more than ten seconds after that.”

“Already set, ma’am. Miss Romanov stands ready to activate cloaking the moment you and Miss Ross are on board. Which, I will add, needs to be quite soon.”

Pepper looked up, clicking on a display. “Betty on her way?”

Jarvis brought Betty up on display. “Not...exactly.”

*****

It wasn’t hard to find Bruce’s room. Tony’s AI, with Pepper’s approval, pointed her in the right direction, and she knew his door when she saw his shoes just outside of it. The door was open, lights on, so she let herself in.

The space _felt_ like Bruce, which meant he’d settled in. It took him a while, she remembered; when they’d moved in together so many years ago, he wouldn’t even unpack at first, far too accustomed to having to pick up and move when one or more of his dad’s strange friends found and threatened him. Even after Betty had used her connections to ensure Brian Banner was fully cut off from the outside world, it took Bruce nearly six months to do more than put his clothes in the closet and his towels in the bathroom. It was nearly a year before he actually hung his diploma on their study wall, but then - 

Oh yes, Bruce had made their apartment his home, then.

And these rooms felt much the same, as if the Bruce she had known had barely changed in his decade or so on the run. The walls were a soft brown, light, and since it sat in the middle of the tower, Bruce had hung colorful antique window panes from chains that went to the high ceiling. She imagined him carefully perusing shops for them, then realized he most likely had to rely on the internet, since her own father hadn’t given up on taking Dr. Banner down. No antique shopping for Bruce now; no lazy afternoons spent browsing, his own calloused hand in hers.

She recognized Bruce’s handiwork, too - shelves he’d obviously built himself, a coffee table that, if he didn’t create, he’d certainly refinished. She wondered where Tony set up a wood shop for him and how it was furnished, if he still had a set of varnish brushes that he carefully cleaned after every job, as meticulous about keeping them in good shape as he was in shaping and carving the wood. 

Betty let herself touch the shelves, ran her hands along their smoothness, leaned in and inhaled the scent of varnish and old books. Oh yes - she remembered this scent lingering on his hands and arms when he’d come back from the garage their friend Bryan let him use, remembered those working hands curling around her waist, pulling her close. She missed their roughness, such a contrast to his usually soft nature.

The living area, with its scattering of notebooks and overfilled bookshelves and simple tea kettle still sitting next to a half-empty cup was hard enough. The bedroom was far worse. Betty covered her mouth as she took in the holes in the wall, the dusted sheetrock, the broken side table. The bed was a mess, covers thrown about, Bruce’s many pillows - oh, how she remembered how he hugged those in his sleep - shoved around and off. There was a very visible outline of a person in that busted wall, and Betty imagined Bruce flinging himself against it, fighting the transformation that had taken him over. _A new monster_ , she thought. _God, Bruce must be so scared_.

Carefully, she lowered herself to the floor. There, under the bed, was an obviously packed duffel, and Betty didn’t need to look to know what was inside. Two pairs of clothes, a set of good walking shoes, a razor. Money. He’d kept one under their bed too, ready at any moment to disappear should his father find him again. It wasn’t a habit he ever broke - and probably never would, now.

“Please, Bruce, please,” Betty said, putting out a hand and feeling carefully around the bottom of the bed frame. She slid her fingers carefully along the edges of the wooden slats holding up the box spring. “You were always such a creature of habit; please tell me you kept - “

There. Her fingers brushed something that wasn’t box spring, and Betty shimmied her way under the bed to get hold of it and pull it loose. It wasn’t the one she remembered - the cover was yellow instead of black, and this one was thicker - but a quick thumb through the pages told her it was the right journal. “Oh, bless your little habitual heart,” she said out loud, kissing the cover, wiggling her way out so she could stand up.

Pepper popped up on a screen apparently embedded into the wall opposite the bed just as Betty stood up. “Found it!” Betty told her, holding up the book as if it would mean something to Pepper. The other woman simply looked confused.

Betty started to explain, but Pepper waved a hand to silence her. “No time. Tell me on the plane. Jarvis - get Betty to the landing pad ASAP; we take off in two.”

“Would you be so kind as to hurry to the elevator bank, Miss Ross?” Jarvis asked, polite as ever. Betty tucked the book under her arm as the display blanked out and left Bruce’s suite in a run.


	20. Chapter 20

Everything hurt. Hell, his _eyebrows_ even hurt.

“Lucky to be alive, Stark,” that voice that had taken Bruce away barked at him, and Tony wanted to growl, but his face and his throat hurt too much, and his chest didn’t want to expand any more than necessary to breathe. Speaking, even grunting, wasn’t yet an option. 

Tony opened his eyes and recognized the interior of one of his jets, the gray-skinned nasty sitting in his chair. _His_ chair. Drinking _his_ bourbon. _Better be the cheap stuff_ , he thought, and his eyes must have settled on the glass, because Fix-It chuckled and held up the tumbler in a toast. “Only the finest for yours truly,” he said, and laughed when Tony tried to frown.

“Jarvis ain’t on this ride, kid,” Fix-It continued, upending the bourbon as he stood and headed to the well-stocked bar for another. “Made sure of that before we got on board. And he can’t access the suits right now; shut that off first thing. So don’t try to be a hero.” He motioned to a chair on the opposite side of the plane, where Clint was strapped in, still unconscious. “I got no problem snapping necks to keep things civil.”

Tony tried to move and immediately regretted it; it felt like his skin was too tight in a hundred places, every one of them stretching and tearing when he tried to sit up straighter. He groaned, and that hurt too, and fury hot as liquid steel flared in his eyes. Fix-It finished pouring his drink and smiled, long and slow, to see it. “Fucking sucks to be helpless, don’t it? To be at the mercy of someone else’s grand experiment?” He sipped that bourbon, leaning a meaty arm on the bar to get closer to eye level. “Got plenty more in store for you, engineer; an experiment or five of my _own_.” Grey eyes went hard. “Been planning ‘em since the first time you cut us open.”

“Bruce willingly participates,” Tony managed to get out before it hurt too much.

“That what you think?” Fix-It answered, shoving away from the bar and moving to tower over Tony in his seat. He flicked a finger against Tony’s temple, and pain exploded there, ran the length of his spine. Tony howled, and Fix-It laughed and leaned on the back of the chair. “Because _I_ think you’re just his last resort. His final chance to maybe have some semblance of control, or at least pretend to it.” Fix-It leaned down, that big face only a foot from Tony’s own, breathing bourbon. “I think Bruce _gave up_ when he came to you, and this whole experiment has been one long-ass attempt to end his miserable, pathetic life. You know why?” He tapped his own temple, standing back up. “Because I can see it, in his head. Always could.” Another grin. “Fucker’s been waiting to die since he could _walk_.”

Tony could hear the engines now, knew they were in the air. He had no idea how long he’d been out, though the half-empty bourbon bottle suggested long enough to be well outside of Manhattan. Window shades were closed, so he couldn’t see if they were over land or water, and he’d always been shit at determining directions. _Fuck it. Go for snark._ “So, you’re - what? Bruce’s Little Helper in that regard? Sounds a bit - suicidal.”

Gray arms spread wide, a grin following. “I’m Mister Fix-It!” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m here to get rid of the parts no one wanted anyway! I will turn this shitpile of an existence _around_ , Stark. And you and that little bastard over there,” he crooked a thumb Clint’s direction, “are gonna help.”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony shot back, fighting the pain in his chest and throat. “Gonna have to pass. Dinner reservations at six, and POTUS doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Fix-It laughed, nothing in that sound suggesting mirth, and swallowed down another glass of bourbon. “I’ll see if I can’t get some bit of you there.” He settled back into his chair, opening the window blind closest to him and peering out, his voice going cold. “Maybe that snarky _tongue_.”

Tony blanched. “Bruce, Big Guy - come on. Don’t let this piece of shit - “

Fix-It snarled, a hand lashing out, pressing hard enough against Tony’s chest that he couldn’t breathe. “ _Can_ it, tin man,” he growled. “He’s not coming back. I burned them and buried them, and they’re _never coming back_. This is _my_ life now.” He gave Tony a shove that made him see stars, and then the pain thankfully took Stark down again.

*****

Dad was right. Dad was always right. 

The little furry creature underneath Bruce screamed and scratched and bit and wriggled. Bruce’s arms bled from a dozen wounds, but still he held on tight, tighter than he’d ever held on before, afraid the rabbit would run toward the door, toward the flames that had already started to creep inside. “Stupid kid!” Dad screamed outside, and Bruce only curled up more tightly at the sound of that voice. “Get out here, _now_!”

Bruce didn’t budge. Dad was mad, and in here, even with the fire, was better than out there with him. The little ball of fur under him slowed its kicking and biting, so it got easier to stay. If he could just wait Dad out, get out the back window with Sir Bounce-a-Lot, things would be okay again. He’d find a better place to hide his pet, one that Dad would never look in, never get mad, never come screaming and shoving and pushing his face into rabbit poo, smearing the little pellets on his face, shoving them between his lips. “I _told_ you that damned thing was nothing but trouble!” Dad had screamed, right before kicking it.

Bruce hadn’t known rabbits could scream. But it did, and he screamed right along with it.

“Pussy,” Dad spat, kicking him down again for good measure, and he’d put on the padlock when he left. Bruce had tried to climb to one of the windows, but the air started smelling funny, and his head swam.

It got hot. Really hot. And then Sir Bounce-a-Lot started screaming again and scratching at the walls, and her fur suddenly went yellow and orange...

Bruce had jumped down then, and rolled over her, and she screamed again and bit him as the flames got inside where she’d torn a hole, as the smell in the air got heavier and darker and more dangerous.

“ _Mom!_ ” Bruce cried, feeling the flames getting closer, thankful now that the rabbit had calmed down, wasn’t hurting him any more. “We’ll get out of here,” he told the rabbit, petting it softly, careful to avoid the burned parts. He smelled bad, like a burned egg or a really old trash can, and Bruce thought that must be what fear smelled like. “ _MOM!_ ” He screamed as loud as his little lungs could handle, and inhaled enough smoke to get him coughing badly.

“Fucking _idiot!_ ” Dad hollered at him from outside. “There’re three windows in the goddamned thing; get to one of them before it’s too late! Don’t _make_ me come in there after you, Brucie,” and that was enough to get Bruce to his feet, Bounce-a-Lot squeezed tight against his chest. He could imagine those fists flexing, imagined hearing knuckles crack, and he knew he had to fight his own way out.

The bunny was quiet and soft, and a little wet, and he didn’t struggle, which made things easier, because he wasn’t light. Bruce did a quick calculation in his head and realized his pet weighed 21% of what he weighed. “Big bunny,” he said to the bundle he tucked under one arm. “Jackrabbit.” He’d looked his pet up in the encyclopedia, and knew what those long, now limp ears meant.

There were boxes. Lots of boxes, where Dad kept his empties. Bruce kept Bounce-a-Lot tucked safely under one arm and started dumping them out. “Dammit...dammit...I hear you in there, boy!” Dad shouted, pounding on the side of the shed. “Sixty seconds to get your ass out here. Ready? One! Two!” He kept counting, and Bruce’s little heart threatened to jump out of his chest.

“Please, mommy, please,” Bruce said to himself, heading toward the window furthest from Dad’s voice. He stacked three boxes, one at a time, climbing on top of each one when he was done, still holding on desperately to the fur bundle under one arm. “Don’t let him come in after me.” He begged whatever God might be listening for Mom to be okay, be able to wake up and come downstairs and give him just enough time for him and Bounce-a-Lot to disappear into the desert for the night. It would be cold, but they could cuddle together, and Dad would be sober, maybe, by the time they got back...

The boxes under Bruce shifted, and he barely managed to jump onto the workbench before they fell over. “Thirty-two!” Dad shouted outside, and Bruce couldn’t tell over the crackle of flames if the back door opened, if Mom was coming outside. “Thirty-three!” Bruce scrambled toward the window on the back of the shed, little hands fumbling against the rusty lock that didn’t want to budge.

“Forty!” 

There was no Mom, and the window wouldn’t open, and Bruce couldn’t take a breath without coughing. “Dad!” he screamed, a last desperation. “Dad, please! The window won’t open!” He pounded against it with one little fist, his pet still tucked under the other arm.

“Fucking...” Dad said, loud enough to be heard over the flames, and a rock flew through the top pane, missing Bruce by inches. Sharp glass rained down on him, and he curled around Bounce-a-Lot once more, not wanting him to get cut. A heavy hand came through the opening and worked the lock, then shoved the window open from the bottom. Bruce put the rabbit through first, then hurried after, jumping away from the shed to avoid the lick of flames that had just started on the back.

“Dammit, kid!” Dad shouted, foot shoving Bounce-a-Lot around. “Really? You almost died for _that_?” The rabbit didn’t move. Part of its back was black and broken open, and his ears flopped down around his face. His chest didn’t move, and his nose didn’t wiggle, even when Bruce coughed and gagged. Little black eyes were open, but they didn’t look like they saw anything. “And your mom calls you smart.” Dad bent down, picking up the limp thing and tossing it back through the window to burn with the rest of the shed “Well, he’s gone now.” He picked Bruce up, slinging him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes, patting his back when he coughed even more for it. “Next time, maybe you’ll listen to me.” He sniffed, and Bruce coughed, and he slapped that back hard enough that Bruce lost breath and started to see stars. “Yeah,” Dad said, voice starting to fade, the world going gray, “Gimme half a chance, Brucie boy, and you’ll be okay.”

*****

Only, that wasn’t right, somehow. That wasn’t what happened. The memory rippled and shifted, and little Bruce was in a hospital bed with tubes and a big mask over his mouth, and Dad was sitting with Mom and sobbing. “We almost lost him,” he said to Mom, rocking in his chair, her arms wrapped around him. “God, honey, I was almost too late.”

“Dad?” Bruce said, or tried to say. His throat felt like someone had poured sand into it, and barely any sound came out.

Dad looked up, face red and stained with tears, and immediately reached for Bruce’s hand. “Oh, Brucie. Son. Thank God; thank God.” He wrapped Bruce’s hand in his own, lifted it, kissed it, and Mom started crying now too. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.”

Bruce’s head swam, and the room seemed to go cold. Without meaning to, he started to cry as well, and his body shivered all over. He was alive, somehow - alive, and here, with family.

“Bruce,” Mom said, looking at him with sad eyes, and that’s when the memory shattered.

*****

Pepper was up and pacing the cabin the moment the pilot announced they were at cruising altitude. She kicked off her shoes and paced barefoot, tapping her lips with one delicate finger and thinking hard. One glance at Natasha told her that the agent had a plan already, but she wasn’t ready to listen to it yet. Too much was still...insane. Impossible. Which, she realized, was a bit ridiculous to think when the city had been invaded not all that long ago by aliens and gods from a long-gone pantheon.

“Betty,” she said suddenly, and Betty’s eyes jumped from the window to her. She was chewing her lip to the point it was angry and red, and only stopped when she realized that Pepper was looking right back at her.

“Has there ever been any sign - _any_ \- of anything else inside Bruce besides the Hulk?” She stopped her pacing, could feel Natasha stiffen behind her without showing it. Okay - a good question, she assumed, if the spy paid attention to the answer.

Betty pondered a moment, swallowing, thinking back to the first moments, when they’d reconnected after Bruce ran. “There...were glimpses,” she suggested, hands wringing, trying hard to remember exactly what Bruce had told her. Bruce, who was now locked into a different and, in her mind, far more horrifying being that had taken him over. ”Just shades, really. He said he heard others, once or twice, when he was on the edges of sleep of exhaustion.” 

“ _Others_? Plural?” Natasha turned more fully toward Betty, and her gaze made Betty squirm, all hunger, piercing and damning and understanding all at once. She couldn’t meet it, wasn’t prepared to face scrutiny that intense.

“Plural,” Betty repeated, eyes on her hands, and nodded. “Just...once or twice. He called them ghosts of the past.” And he had, long before the accident and the Hulk and the hunt and life as she knew it ending. “He wasn’t terribly keen on - “

“Before or after his accident?” Natasha interrupted, arms crossing over her chest, her own expression inscrutable. Something about that irritated Betty, made her get to her feet and try to stare the shorter woman down. Natasha’s gaze didn’t waver, though; she stood as still and as tall as she had before Betty had come to loom, waiting for her answer.

Betty sighed, lifting a hand to rub her eyes, knowing where this was going. “Both,” she admitted, thinking back to nights in their apartment when he talked in his sleep, when he told her about his dreams. Remembering those two days in the hotel with him, when they’d ditched all of their electronics and credit cards, and Bruce had confided that part of him had been barking at him all along that this was a bad idea, that he shouldn’t have involved her and he was so, so sorry... “Both,” she repeated, pulling herself out of memory, eyes turning toward Pepper, whose expression was far softer and more understanding. “And I know you’re worried now that there are a dozen more things inside him that could get out, but I don’t think...can’t think, that - “

A soft hand squeezed Betty’s shoulder as Pepper stepped a little closer. “I know,” she said quietly, meeting Betty’s gaze. She was ready with a tissue when Betty’s eyes filled up, pressing it into Betty’s palm, turning away to give the woman a moment. Natasha’s gaze, hard and calculating, found Pepper’s and locked.

“We _have_ to find out what gave this thing access to Bruce’s body and mind.” Natasha said, stepping close to Pepper, voice quiet. “If this is coming from inside Bruce, it has to be be something like what caused the Hulk - an emotion, memory, need, idea. If outside,” Oh, Natasha paused, and wanted to groan. “I’m rooting for inside.”

“I can assure you that no energy patterns or communications have targeted Dr. Banner during his time in the tower,” Jarvis chimed in helpfully. “Though, the man himself has been quite restless these past three months.”

Pepper’s eyebrows went up. Ever since she left on her extended business trip? “Restless, how?” she asked, moving back to her chair, pulling a display from the armrest and turning it on. “Show me what you mean.” Natasha followed suit in her own chair, and Betty soon after as Jarvis loaded the feeds.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies for the long delay in editing. I ended a job, started a new job, and traveled tons. I'm catching up!

Both men were out, so Fix-It relaxed and finished off Stark’s best bourbon. He took his time, sipping, appreciating the feel of it on his tongue, in his throat. Delicious - nothing at all like the burn and pain Banner had in his head. “Infant,” he said aloud, pacing the small space the airplane provided, swirling the little bit of amber still left in his glass. “Amateurs, the lot,” he noted, lifting Clint’s chin and studying that unseeing face. A SHIELD agent, and still - Clint hadn’t seen him coming. 

“Hell of a disappointment,” Fix-It said to empty air, letting Clint’s jaw go.

Tony was little better - supposedly the smartest man on the planet, but couldn’t see his closest friend coming apart at the seams. It had been ridiculously simple to manifest after all those experiments, when change after change left Bruce’s barriers fragile, broken. Dreams were the easiest space to start infiltrating; thoughts came a short while after, waking their body in the middle of the night, sending it to work in hidden ways. Really, after that, it was just a matter of patience on Fix-It’s part - waiting for the right triggers, the right moments, to let loose the other side of Bruce to rampage and leave holes Fix-It could slip through to collect memories and understanding and place.

It had taken a while, but the wait was worth it. Fix-It swallowed another sip of bourbon and grinned, all teeth, patting his own chest and appreciating its solidity.

“Fucking hyena,” a voice came from Clint’s chair, barely audible. Fix-It grinned and hunched down, staring into eyes that struggled to open and focus. “Laugh it up,” Clint continued, wincing and spitting blood, swimming eyes seeking focus.

Fix-It grabbed the man’s chin again and only smiled wider when he cringed. “Well if it isn’t Annie Oakley,” he said, breath heavy with booze, almost making Clint cough. “Just in time for our descent.”

Clint’s eyes refused to focus, but he took in his surroundings anyway. One of Stark’s planes - that was easy enough to figure out. This room held population three; Clint guessed Tony, himself, and the thing that had knocked him into next week. “Due for a vacation,” he managed as hands worked slowly, testing his binds, checking for any weapons he might have left on him. He made it fumbling and awkward, a show for the one holding him hostage.

“Pretty sure I emptied all your pockets,” the big creature responded, and Clint froze for a second. Almost Bruce’s voice, but not. And nowhere close to Hulk’s. He managed, with effort, to focus on the gray creature hunched in front of him, still grinning. “Though, I didn’t go digging deep.” That face sneered, and a big gray hand landed in his lap, hard enough to make Clint grunt. “Do I need to, sweetheart?”

Clint took quick stock and shook his head. “Boot blade,” he offered quickly, and even lifted his right foot, twisting his ankle to release the tiny knife in the heel. _Cooperate _, Clint reminded himself, _and keep control._ “All I have,” Clint continued. “Seriously. Please.” The begging made his entire body curl, but Clint knew the game. He didn’t stop, even looked up as Fix-It looked down. Gazes locked, and Clint reacted on instinct. “Seriously - that’s the best I got without my bow.”__

__That gray thing’s eyes flicked upward, only a moment - but that was enough to give Clint hope. Good enough for now. Clint let his eyes lose focus, head rolling back on his neck, and gave up a wet, bloody cough. “Jesus,” he rattled, trying to lift his hands and groaning, secretly pleased to see that asshole smile just a little more for it._ _

__And then it happened, just like they’d predicted: the thing in front of him twitched involuntarily, taking a stumbling step back, and eyes bled toward brown. Fix-It snarled and turned away from Clint, chest rumbling in a growl. “Dammit,” he muttered under his breath, and Clint couldn’t help but smile._ _

___Do it, Bruce; fight your way back out,_ Clint thought as he let his eyes close again, grateful for a little more time to rest as Fix-It settled into a chair and turned his focus inward. _You work the inside angle; we’ve got your back_. _ _

__*****  
There was time before Hulk, Hulk knows. Bad time. But Hulk only remembers after Hulk; before is all Banner, and someone else buried deep. Watching._ _

__Hulk knows those eyes._ _

__In his head, Hulk rages, tearing apart the flimsy store where his body remains limp, refusing to respond. In his mind, he roars and forces white arms to move, lift, throw, burn the things that watch and bring danger. Hulk sees the underground lab, all cobwebs and dust and Banner’s favorite books - but he sees what watches, too, and knows._ _

__Fire. Banner thinks fire bad, but not now. No. Fire saves._ _

__“BANNER,” Hulk rasps, throat screaming, wanting to stay closed tight. “LOOK.” One eye opens to nothingness, and Hulk wants to roar fury. “LOOK, BANNER. _SEE_.” The last word empties Hulk, though, and no more breath comes._ _


	22. Chapter 22

Before recruiting Banner for the Tesseract problem, Fury laid out a dozen potential complications in his mind. Hulk appearing was number one. The two of them disappearing after was number two.

And number three was the stress - or the energy of the Tesseract, or the sheer amount of snark that the team could generate - leading to another transformation. A third creature, different from Bruce, different from Hulk. The big green rage monster was a part of Bruce’s psyche, all the best minds surmised; no telling how many more splintered pieces that man was carrying around. After his childhood, and a decade on the run, the possibility of another personality was high enough on the planning scale that he’d built contingencies. In secret, of course. 

Now, the spyware Clint hid in the tower’s systems told him complication three had occurred. “Pray we don’t get to seven,” he said to Hill, the only one on the bridge who might have an idea of what he meant. Her lips twitched, enough to make Fury smile and chuckle under his breath. “Okay, team, this is a code 19. Crack those folders, and get to work.” He strode off the bridge in the direction of the labs, pleased to see the scientists already scrambling, setting up equipment and opening up long-stored samples as they followed the directions in their folders.

“Good,” he said to one of his chief scientists, who suddenly looked up at him with understanding. “You’ve got this. Now get me something that will _work_.” He patted the man’s shoulder and kept on his way, pausing only long enough to ensure that every member of the lab had started on their orders. 

Simulations suggested they had less than ten hours before the situation became critical. With Barton down, Fury couldn’t get any more exact than that. Not yet, anyway. He opened a line to Natasha’s communicator - text only - and typed away as the elevator took him to the research floor. Half a dozen operatives scrambled about the space as Fury walked through them, ignoring the chaos, heading to the center where a new Hulk chamber had been loaded, its four-ton glass radiating a kind of energy that set his nerves on edge and made his teeth jangle. 

“Think this’ll work?” Fury asked the lady at the controls, who was busy entering a series of equations. She glanced up at Fury and immediately stood attention, saluting. Fury just waved a gloved hand and turned to the display she was manipulating. “Just _tell me_ if you think we have a chance in Hell for this to work.”

“There’s a chance. In Hell.” The woman’s fingers flew across the display, following instructions from the folder she just cracked. “And when this is all over, you have got to tell me how you pulled together these calibrations. Did Doctor - ”

“Save it,” Fury replied, watching as the glow in the glass started to strengthen. “Just - get it online, doctor.” He waited until he could feel the pulse of the barrier on his skin, then left the chamber to prepare for his part.

*****

All three women watched the footage in silence. Watched Bruce sit up in the middle of the night, over and over, padding out of his room and into the lab to open a display, work away in silence. “I’m afraid I was locked out of the sequences he ran,” Jarvis apologized, sounding contrite, “and left unable to share this data, until now.” He ran through a brief explanation of the protocols Tony had initiated in his latest research and how it had managed to unlock at least part of this information. “The data feeds, though, and the information they contain, are still out of reach.”

“We’re on it,” Natasha said, relaying the information to teams on both coasts. “We’ll find what he hid.” She moved away from the others to open a case, pull out a laptop, and get connected.

“How long has this been going on?” Betty asked a second time, not yet willing to accept the first answer.

“Three months, thirteen days, four hours since the first recording,” Jarvis answered more exactly. “I have minutes and seconds as well, Ms. Ross, if you wish.” 

Betty pursed her lips. “He used to...talk...in his sleep, and sometimes I’d find him out of bed somewhere else, but...” She glanced up at Pepper, shaking her head. “Never this. Nothing like this.” She hurried to her bag and pulled out the yellow, dog-eared journal she’d found tucked under Bruce’s mattress, squeezing it with both hands. “But he always dreamed. Vividly. And wrote every one of them down.”

Natasha looked up, but Pepper was faster in reaching Betty and putting out a hand. Betty hesitated, forehead furrowed, and pulled the journal closer. “It’s yours to review if you prefer,” Pepper said softly, pulling her hand back, not wanting to push. She knew too well what it was like to lose a partner over and over again to the crazed thing inside him that insisted on rampage. “But...you don’t have to do it. Not immediately.”

“We can take a look first,” Natasha added behind Betty, without looking up, though her hands worked still on the keyboard. “Besides,” she added, turning the laptop around to show both other women a display full of abbreviations and equations, “I’m betting you can make sense of this faster than I can.”

Part of Betty clung to that dream diary, wanted to open it and indulge in those most private of moments, feel connected to Bruce once more. She remembered laying on his chest in the mornings as he jotted them down in his old brown journal he’d left behind so long ago, heard the drone of his voice as he mouthed every word he wrote. She’d so loved waking up that way, fingers curling in his hair, yawning and missing a word or two as her ears popped. But right now wasn’t the time for indulgence, and another part of her was grateful for the excuse to set aside, at least briefly, those entries that would be both beautiful and painful. At last, she nodded, setting the book down on a nearby table and settling in the chair Natasha had vacated for her.

Pepper and Natasha had worked together long enough that a glance between them laid out the plan. Pepper turned away from the journal and left it to the spy, pulling a tablet out of her own bag to pull up schematics for the underground bunker to which they suspected Fix-It was headed. “I’ll find us a way in,” she said, and Nat simply nodded and picked up the book, heading into the back. She didn’t close the door, but was careful not to let the others notice when she sent the latitude and longitude Fury had requested.

“Hang in there, boys,” Nat murmured to herself, and got to work on the journal.

*****

The world faded around Bruce until he was on his feet again, a year older, crouched on the windowsill of his room, looking at the tree that seemed just a little too far away.

The door behind him was jumping on its hinges, Dad bellowing on the other side unintelligibly. His arm throbbed where Dad had grabbed him and jerked him out of his chair earlier, shoving his books and papers off the table, roaring something about not spending enough time with his father, not even trying to grow up to be a man. Bruce’s little fist had flown before he knew it, catching Dad on the jaw, surprising him enough to make him let go. And Bruce ran, letting the rage and fear get his legs pumping, up the stairs and into his room where he stacked everything he could in front of the door.

Bruce quickly calculated the odds of breaking a bone if he fell to the ground versus the odds of getting one broken if he stayed. The ground won, so he made a leap for the branch, and missed. Well, technically he got a handful of leaves, but that didn’t help. What _did_ help were the encyclopedias Mom had bought him, the entries on skydiving and gymnastics and stunt work, and their short paragraphs on how to fall. He fell like they suggested, mostly limp, letting his legs crumple and his body roll. And though he was covered in dirt by the time he stopped, and his legs felt rubbery and unstable, he was okay. Wasn’t busted up.

“Let me explain!” Dad screamed above, and Bruce didn’t wait for him to come through the door, find out he’d escaped. He ran toward the car, where Mom already sat, engine running, eyes pleading with him to hurry.

And then Dad shoved the bedroom door open, throwing something against the wall, and Bruce’s body froze a moment in fear.

“I’m _sorry_! God, Brucie, please, I’m sorry.” Dad’s voice was closer, and choked with emotion, and Bruce couldn’t help but look back as a face appeared in the open window. Tears lined the man’s cheeks, and his forehead pinched when he saw the fear in Bruce’s eyes. Lips quivered. “God, Brucie, I didn’t mean to...please, please don’t leave.” A sob broke from his throat, and Bruce felt trapped, caught between the car where Mom’s own tear-streaked face stared at Dad and the room where Dad’s face suddenly crumpled, cheek falling to the windowsill.

Something in Bruce stirred, something big and mean and angry that wanted to smash Dad’s face in, but that only made Bruce feel worse. Like the bad son Dad said he was. So he tried to be better than that, pushed it down, sought for the compassion they taught in school. “He’s sorry, Mom,” he called toward the car, and her swollen eyes snapped back to him. “Mom, I...I think he’s really honestly sorry.”

Mom stared back at Bruce for a long time, and Bruce couldn’t make sense of the looks that crossed her face. There were so _many_. “Come here, sweetie,” she finally said quietly, leaning out the window to be heard better. “Just...let’s go for a drive and give your Daddy some time.”

Bruce glanced back up at the window, where Dad still curled and cried and begged him not to go. But Mom’s eyes made him walk her way, and he got into the car and strapped in. “He’s crying,” Bruce told Mom quietly, feeling guilty for not having told her that before. “He doesn’t want us to go.”

“I know, hon,” Mom answered back, brushing back his hair and sending some of the dust he’d picked up in his fall billowing in the air between them. “I know.” And then she backed out of the driveway, and they drove off into a quickly-smearing horizon.

But Mom took Dad back. Mom always took him back.

Bruce remembered Dad’s tear-stained cheeks, all the emptied bottles of alcohol next to the kitchen sink, the stench lingering in the air. He remembered Dad’s promises - no more booze, and he’d see a doctor, and things would be better - words Bruce had heard a dozen times before. He watched how Mom’s face crumpled when Dad begged forgiveness. And then preachers came by, and doctors, and adults held hushed conversations he tried hard to hear from the hallway, but which were always pitched just a little too quiet for his ears to pick up. So he knew - oh, yes, Bruce knew Dad _tried_. And he knew that was supposed to mean something, knew it would if he could just be just a better son.

Bruce felt the world around him shifting and reforming, trying to solidify again, and he fought it. Something big and important was happening outside his head, and he needed to get out to see it, but...

No. No. A wave, massive and gray, washed over the sky and blackened it, sending him into a void that only faded once someone switched on the lights, whiting the world out around him.

Bruce sat in the visitation room, sixth-grade report card in hand, curling it carefully to give himself something to do. No wrinkling or bending, because that would be sloppy, but his hands needed to be busy, so he rolled the stiff paper into a tube and flattened it out again on his thigh, over and over.

“Stop fidgeting,” Aunt Josie reprimanded, giving his knee a light whack. Bruce stiffened and stopped immediately, and couldn’t miss how Josie’s cheeks burned red right after. His own cheeks followed the moment Dad appeared in the doorway, hair slicked back and a little too long, his suit a little faded, his gait just a bit more shuffly than it had been during the last visit.

Bruce’s whole body went rigid when Dad smiled, ashen skin splitting wide and wrinkling around dead eyes, and he knew he was doomed. He wanted to crawl under the table and hide.

“You give it to him,” Bruce said suddenly, hopping out of his chair and shoving the report card toward his aunt. “He likes you; you’re family.”

Josie laughed and pushed the report card back. “And you aren’t?” she chided gently, putting a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, frowning a little to feel the tremble in his body. “Come on now, you know your dad loves you. Doesn’t he say it every time?”

Bruce swallowed hard and didn’t look back, but could feel Dad approaching anyway, like an electric current burning through a cable. “Son,” that quiet voice came, and Bruce took a moment to pray that this place could hold Dad’s power in, and that he wouldn’t pave the way to let Dad overwhelm him again.

And another part, deeper inside, clenched fists and readied for battle.

*****

“Sir, West Coast team 19 is assembled.”

Fury scanned the faces on the screen in front of him. “You have your coordinates. Stay cloaked; this is intel only. Anything bad starts to happen, you radio it in and let someone else handle it. We need eyes on this situation at all times. Copy?”

“Copy,” the lieutenant said, and they all saluted as one. Fury nodded at the gesture, turning off the feed. It had been far too long a day for such formalities in his mind, though he knew it set other’s hearts more at ease. 

“Hill. Status.”

“Teams 12 and 34 have been dispatched and are on their way to the rendezvous point. They believe they can infiltrate and scatter before the plane lands, sir. Tony’s...Pepper, has been there, and remembers it well enough to provide us a few safe landing spots along with a number of potential entry points. Expect confirmation within the hour.” Hill stopped next to a display, reviewing it with quick, practiced eyes. “Science team 5 has completed their tasks, and 21 has begun QA.”

“And team 2?” Fury shot back, taking his spot at the helm of the carrier. “We need them ready.”

“Launched, sir, but calibrations are proving more complicated than expected. We need the updated data from Jarvis, but he’s proving difficult to reach outside the tower.”

“Then get someone in the tower.”

Hill looked up, lips tight, but simply nodded. She motioned at one of the officers on the monitors, confident that he would stand and follow. “Your lucky day,” she said as she strode off the deck. “You get to hack Stark Enterprises.”


	23. Chapter 23

Fix-It hated having to go in again. He’d just gotten _out_ , dammit, and he thought he’d left the kid and Jolly Green incapacitated. That lurch inside, though, the hesitation in his thoughts as someone else’s bled through, told him there was still work to be done.

“Not gonna happen, kid,” he said out loud, letting his voice fill the cavities of their mind, conjuring to the fore a dozen horrors from their youth and sifting through each for a good option. He didn’t want to go for the motherload - no, not yet. That he’d save for a real crisis, not just this little whimper of a voice trying to be heard.

“Gotcha.” Fix-It grinned, plucking a memory ripe and ready to burst. He swallowed the thing whole and let it fill him, take him over, change him into what he needed to keep that little bastard down. “Coming for you, Brucie, and your big green pet.” He chuckled, and his hand automatically brought the glass to his lips again, tipping out the few drops left as the plane started its descent. And a moment later, he straightened up to stare at the twelve-year-old looking at him with eyes brimming hate and terror, and he couldn’t help but grin wide. 

“Son,” he said, and put out his hand to ruffle Bruce’s hair. “Good of you to come.” He relished the tension in the boy’s spine, settled a hand on his shoulder just to feel it more. “Now, let’s see how you’ve been doing.”

*****

Clint woke again when the plane tilted toward the ground. Tony’s eyes were open, locking on his as soon as Clint could focus. Fix-It was still in his seat, silent and still, and that gave them a little time, yet both were reluctant to say anything out loud, in case the interloper could overhear.

The beast’s back was turned, though, and there was nothing reflective in front of him They had a few seconds alone. Clint dared to mouth a question Tony’s direction: _Utah?_

Tony nodded, then blinked as Clint smiled and mouthed, _Perfect_. Tony’s eyebrow raised, but he didn’t need to ask if Clint had a plan. He could see the man plotting in silence and hoped there’d be time to clue him in. Good, because Tony was out of options for the moment. 

_We land_ , Barton mouthed, silently. _Count to ten, then go_. Though his face was beaten and bloody, he seemed aware, and Tony nodded. Whatever was coming, Tony knew Clint had a plan. The plane descended, and Tony concentrated, waiting to meet the ground.

******

The world seemed to bend and twist as Dad rustled his hair, and Bruce fought back the nausea that rose with it. Without a word, he held out his report card, rolled up in one hand, toward his father. He was legally obligated still to share such things with the man, and so he did, but he hated it. No matter how well he’d done, Dad would find something to pick apart. He always did. Just like now.

“Only a B+ in gym?” Dad’s ashen face turned Bruce’s way, and the boy had to grip his chair not to fall out of it. There was such depth in those eyes, something he couldn’t fathom, never wanted to. “You being lazy, boy?”

Aunt Josie piped in before Bruce could warn her against it. “He had the flu. It kept him out for nearly two weeks.” She reached over to smooth Bruce’s hair, the boy jerking in his chair at the touch. “There were things he couldn’t make up.”

Dad sneered, and Bruce’s blood ran cold. “Did you even ask, boy? Or did you just accept judgment and move right along?”

“Sir,” Bruce said, and hated himself immediately for falling back into that habit. “Dad. _Brian_.” He spat his father’s name, trying to bring on the hate he knew he should feel. “I...I tried to get the coach to let me - “

The rasping laugh from his father silenced Bruce, and he clutched his knees where his legs hung off the edge of the chair. “Please,” he begged, not able to look up now, terrified of what he’d see in his father’s eyes. “I want to do better.” And he did; oh, how much he wanted in this moment to be better, to see Dad’s eyes light with pride and his aunt give up her distance and hug him like the child he still was. How he wanted a squeeze and a kiss and a ‘good boy,’ but Dad was in the way, a barrier even when he wasn’t around; the damage he caused just never stopped damaging. Bruce looked to his aunt, but she was busy with her purse, digging in it for something that probably wasn’t there.

“Too bad,” Dad answered, and Bruce got to his feet before the man could reach for him. Both aunt and father looked at him in surprise, but he didn’t care. He overturned his chair and put it between himself and Dad, crouching down, backing toward a door he hoped marked an exit, wanting nothing more than to just get out.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Bruce managed, voice shaking, knowing how much of a lie that was. But he needed something, anything, to fuel him in this escape, even if it was only to another room in a madhouse. “You can’t...touch me, any more.”

The pale man in front of him laughed, hacking with the effort, even doubling over a second before he cracked a smile and got to his feet to tower over Bruce. “That so, sport?” He leaned over the table between them, and Bruce scooted his chair back just in time to keep from being snagged in a massive hand. “That what you think?” The face before him snarled, and Bruce’s veins froze. Someone should intervene, pull Dad away. Stop Dad. But there was no one around, no guards watching, and his father loomed, huge and terrifying. Bruce cringed, despite himself, and tried to pull away.

The man noticed, and cracked a low smile as he reached for Bruce again. “No rest for the wicked, kid,” he noted as a meaty hand wrapped around one shoulder and jerked Bruce almost off his feet. “Ready to pay the piper?” That grip was strong and fierce and dug into Bruce’s shoulder, making him wince and fight the whimper that tried to escape. 

“Dad,” he started, and corrected himself again quickly. “Brian, _please_ …”

His father grinned wide at that, and something in the air shifted. The look on the man’s face should have been scary, but it looked somehow overdone. Clownish. Absurd. It was wrong; it wasn’t _Dad_. At best, a caricature; at worst, a complete fake. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t Bruce’s past, and Bruce knew it, suddenly and deeply. He tried to pull away as the real moment came to mind - the waiting room, the uncomfortable chairs, the sounds of people crying or laughing or both in the background...it was all familiar, but it wasn’t quite right.

A thought broke through, then. This wasn’t his memory. And the moment he knew that, Bruce saw the truth. Yes, he’d been forced to face his father before starting junior high; the courts had never transferred custodianship, so he couldn’t enroll without his father’s signature. And Dad had made him pay for the privilege, of course - but not like this. No, Dad did worse; he’d reached out and tried to _hug_ his son, and wept when Bruce recoiled from the touch. Curled into a ball on the floor, whimpering apologies, Dad cried fat tears as he begged his son not to hate him, and Bruce only hated him more for it. 

Dad wasn’t strong and intimidating. Dad was weak and broken and begging. He was pathetic. And he certainly didn’t get the chance to put a hand on Bruce that day; no, they’d shot him full of some drug or another and dragged his limp body back to a cell. The man in this memory wasn’t his father - he just _wanted_ to be.

And there, in the dissonance between memory and lie, Bruce found himself, real and grown and whole. The boy faded, replaced by the man who stood up slowly and smiled slowly at the surprise in that big gray face. He brushed off the hand he’d cowered from a second ago and stretched to his full height, lifting his chin to stare this new monster in the face.

“I _see_ you,” Bruce spat, and fought laughter as the ashen-skinned fake of a father ground his teeth and growled frustration, fist balling at his sides. One fist flew, and Bruce dodged automatically, the room around them fading into blankness as the battle took over. “Oh, keep doing that,” he murmured, eyes flashing, a welcome fury bubbling up inside, “and you’re gonna make me angry.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy my birthday, folks! I'm very close to finishing this story, and should be posting chapters in rapid succession! Here's one, and another one coming tomorrow, and one every few days until this is done! Hope you've enjoyed the trip, and please let me know what you think.

Their plane landed ten minutes after Team 12 scattered and infiltrated the old base. Pepper located and identified half a dozen other escape routes and shared them with Team 34. They didn’t know what this new monster could do and couldn’t take the chance of him getting loose, so they covered every potential exit. SHIELD continued to drop off operatives as Natasha, Pepper, and Betty waited for their plane to stop. 

They’d taken advantage of the secondary hangar, a full hundred yards below the main floor, designed for stealth. There were steps and an elevator, both shielded with many feet of sound-dampening concrete, designed to provide a soundproofed exit in case of infiltration. The system was sixty years old, but it was Stark technology, and Tony had kept the place up. More than enough reason to believe this entrance would work.

“Please tell me you both know how to handle a gun,” Natasha asked as they left the plane and headed toward the lift.

Betty nodded. She’d had her first lesson at age six from a father who’d just been promoted to captain, kept a gun collection at home, and still practiced weekly, even with a full teaching and research schedule. Hell, if she’d known she was going to be leaving the tower, she’d have brought a piece of her own.

Natasha smiled slightly as she reached into a bag and handed Betty a 9mm. Betty checked the ammunition, locked the piece, and tucked it into her clothes automatically. Pepper blanched at the exchange.

Natasha lifted an eyebrow. “You’re dating Tony Stark, and he hasn’t taught you how to fire a gun?” She made a mental note to tell Fury that Stark needed training on how to treat those who matter when one is a both a billionaire and a superhero.

But Pepper frowned at Natasha’s response. It wasn’t like she was helpless. Clearing her throat, she stopped next to the lift doors and stood a bit taller. “Give me a repulsor, and I can do plenty of damage,” she responded, pulling a stray bit of hair behind an ear, fighting the desire to ask Natasha just how well she handled Clint’s weapon of choice. “And give me two minutes upstairs, and I’ll have plenty to choose from.”

Natasha’s lips curled the tiniest amount as she put up a hand in surrender. “Okay. Good. Armed is good.” She pushed a few buttons on her communicator, and light danced and floated, drawing a hologram of the base in the air. “So, here’s the plan.”

*****

“Good evening, Ms. Hill, and welcome back. Your rooms are precisely as - “

“I’m not staying,” Hill interrupted. Jarvis fell silent immediately, and she marveled quietly at the AI’s intelligence and grace. “Just here for info.”

“Oh?” Two spotlights in the penthouse ceiling lit and turned the direction of the man at her elbow. He froze, glancing Hill’s way, hand on top of his gun. “I’m afraid your guest is not authorized to access any information in my systems, nor has he been granted permission to enter this facility.” The man’s fingers curled around the handle of his gun, but froze again when Hill shook her head, fixing him with a silent glare. Tension mounted for a moment before Hill’s companion relented and lifted his hand away from his weapon. In response, one spotlight went out, and the remainder turned Hill’s way accusingly.

Hill smirked and crossed arms over her chest, lifting a hand to keep her companion still a moment longer. “So why is it you’ve let us in this far, Jarvis? I’ve seen you fry pigeons for getting too close to the roof.” She turned fully toward the spotlight as if leveling her gaze at an adversary. “Got something you want to get off your chest? Maybe something you want found?”

Silence stretched uncomfortably. Maria frowned, and her companion remained silent, turning slowly to take in the penthouse. Rumor was that this space, as elegant and expensive as it seemed, had been renovated to withstand tremendous amounts of damage after Loki’s attack, and renovated again with a wall of hidden weapons after it had been destroyed a time or three by Stark’s green buddy. Both he and Hill assumed that everything pointing their way was loaded with something deadly or horrible. So they waited.

At last, with a whine of systems standing down, Jarvis spoke once more. “Private penthouse terminal activated. My systems await your requests, SHIELD.”

Maria smiled and patted a nearby wall. “Good boy,” she said, lips curling at the corners momentarily. “We’re here to help.” She turned to the other agent, pointed to the bar where Stark’s personal terminal would be located, and pushed him that direction. “You’ve got ten minutes. Get us everything you can from the last month. Go. And if you even _think_ about snooping for something else…”

She didn’t have to finish that sentence. The painting behind the bar split open to display a large terminal, two nasty-looking lasers situated directly above it. They were dormant for the moment, but a tiny green light on each made it clear they were online.

“Acknowledged,” her companion said, swallowing quietly. He situated himself directly under those lasers, managing not to flinch, and went to work.

*****

Fix-It felt control slipping away; he could hear Bruce’s voice in his mind, pulling at him, trying to take over. Trying to get out.

Dammit, he didn’t have time for this.

“Don’t think this is over, kid,” Fix-It barked aloud, clenching his fists and forcing himself not to throw any more punches. He watched the memory fade into nothingness around him and snarled. “But I’ve got important shit to do right now.” He let go then, their shared body still his own, perfectly real and present. Fix-It smiled and chuckled, gripping the chair with his hands, flesh and muscle responding to his will. No better proof that he was still the strongest in this trip. With a snort of derision, Fix-It let go of his internal world and focused on the plan ahead.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen, boys,” Fix-It started, turning in his seat to find both captives’ eyes still closed. “Hey, twinkletoes,” he called Clint’s direction, leaning forward and flicking one thick finger against the man’s skull, waiting for the wail or whimper he expected to follow.

Instead, sound came from behind him. “Ten,” Tony said, and Clint’s eyes flew open. Both men moved faster than Fix-It could counter as Clint rolled out of his seat and landed a kick to his jawline. He connected hard enough that Fix-It fell out of his chair, his world going black for an instant, long enough for him to worry once more about losing control. The door of the plane protested as Clint leveraged the rope on his wrists to unlock the lever and shove the door open. Fix-It cursed as the world came back into focus, too late to catch Tony disappearing.

Tony’s aching body protested, but he fought through it, diving out the opening and running full-tilt away from the airplane toward the maintenance tunnels. He didn’t look back as he mapped a path to the lab in his mind, ignoring laser wounds that reopened, burned and seeped.

Clint watched Tony go and felt a moment of triumph before what little was left in his stomach came up as he went to his knees. “Ugh,” he moaned, “no more acrobatics with a concussion.” He leaned his forehead against the cool metal at the plane door’s opening, appreciating it for the brief moment before a massive gray hand snatched him up and away, making his stomach churn again. “You are so lucky I skipped lunch today,” he murmured as the world swam and tried to go black again.

“I’m going to enjoy squeezing the life out of you,” Fix-It growled then, furious, wanting nothing more than to throw the man through the door and to the concrete below. Clint’s world reeled too hard for him to make out the face so close to his own, so he couldn’t see whether this new creature meant it. But that was fine. No matter what the expression, that face was a big target.

Clint let his head loll back on his neck, then hacked and spat the last of the vomit in his mouth directly at Fix-It’s left eye. It must have hit home, because Fix-It snarled and hissed and let go, and Clint found his legs blessedly rubbery as he went to the floor. “Like to see you try,” he answered the gray behemoth - or, hoped he did, because the world faded fast once he crumpled, and he couldn’t tell whether his mouth had managed. Didn’t matter; Clint collapsed, knowing he’d played Fix-It perfectly. If it was his last act, at least it was a good one. By the time Clint let go of consciousness once again, Tony had disappeared.

*****

Gray. Gray all around, and nothing else. Banner looks, but Banner does not see. Hulk can feel him calling. Hulk wants to respond.

Hulk can’t.

Inside is memory - fire and burning and heat and smoke, all around. Not the first time, but first time it is Hulk’s alone. There is something curled in the middle of the room, small and wet and smelling of copper. Hulk knows to protect, and Hulk does. 

Hulk _remembers_. And Banner calls, but those gray eyes keep Hulk locked down. He can’t rise; the memory has him, and won’t let go.

*****

“Did he ever consider getting help?”

“He got help,” Betty answered, following Natasha up that endless flight of stairs. The spy had insisted against the elevator, and though Betty understood why, her aching legs left her irritated. “Before the accident. It made things worse. His dreams -”

“If they’re anything like what I saw in his journal,” Natasha interrupted, “Then I understand why he stopped trying.”

Betty paused, head shaking, and Pepper came to a halt behind her. “He didn’t, though.” Pepper looked confused, so she clarified. “He didn’t stop getting help. Right up until his accident…” She tapered off, remembering waking in the hospital, her father telling her _Bruce_ had done this to her, then fled justice. Anger - at her lying father, at the outcome of the accident, at the situation that had nearly ended her life and had ended Bruce’s - flushed her face, setting her jaw working. “He kept on trying right up until he ran.”

Natasha paused and turned at that, fishing the journal out of a pocket in the backpack she carried. She flipped to a marked page, then turned the open book around and pressed it into Betty’s hands. “Tell me, then - is this better or worse than when he ran?”

Betty hesitated a moment, remembering Bruce’s nightmares, how they twisted their sheets into knots in the middle of the night, leaving him shaken and sweaty and hollow-eyed. Now that the book was in her hands and open, she didn’t want to know what was inside. “Does it matter right now?” she asked, trying to sound exasperated, but her voice quavered.

Natasha fixed her with a stare, hands on the bannister, lips pressed together tightly. “Yes. Read.”

Betty glanced at Pepper, who’d stepped up behind her, low heels in hand. She put her free hand on Betty’s shoulder, but her eyes were on the page. Betty watched as the woman’s face paled, leaving tiny freckles standing out along the bridge of her nose. And though she thought she knew the answer without looking, Betty turned her eyes to the book and read.

And found herself wrong.

“No.” Betty looked at Natasha, eyes pained. “No, those dreams stopped. His therapist found the root of the fire and the screaming. They were among the worst…” Her face pursed as she remembered shaking Bruce as he tossed and wailed, often falling out of bed before she could wake him. “He had a rabbit - kept as a secret pet when he was a kid. It got killed in a fire, and…” Betty knew the story, remembered it with horror, and couldn’t tell the others. For Bruce, that moment was far too intimate, too vulnerable. She wouldn’t expose him like that. “Well, they found that memory and dealt with it. Bruce was a wreck for a week - couldn’t even go to work, and he loved work - but these dreams stopped.” She looked at Pepper, whose eyes softened in sympathy. “He got rid of them.” Didn’t he?

“Well, they came back.” Natasha looked up the stairs, eyes hard and thoughtful even as Pepper squeezed Betty’s shoulder reassuringly. “And I think I know how to use them.”


	25. Chapter 25

Two lefts, three rights, and Tony found the ladder he needed. But his hands were still tied behind his back, nearly up to the elbow, and his body hurt everywhere. No way he could climb it in this condition. He had to get free.

“Dammit, Jarvis, I wish you could hear me right now,” Tony muttered quietly, slumping against the wall a moment to think. He hadn’t been in the maintenance tunnels in over thirty years, so even his remarkable memory was spotty. Mind racing, he traced the paths his ten-year-old self took as Dad worked away, curiosity compelling him forward, and found nothing. And nothing. And nothing again.

“Shit!” Tony slammed his arms and back against the nearest wall, barely making a sound on the reinforced concrete, hands scraping against the surface painfully. He winced and snarled, eyes roaming the space, trying to think of something, _anything_ , that could help him up and out of these tunnels. He needed a lab. A toolbox. Hell, even a _key_ might -

Oh. _Oh_. Tony’s lips twitched into a hard smile as he shoved himself off the wall, mapping backwards the last time he’d been in the tunnels, the last time Howard had let Tony slip away into them. Happy had caught him and kept him in one of the corridors long enough to get Howard on the comms, and _just_ long enough for Tony to hatch a plan never to get trapped again. He hadn’t had time to make use of it then, but...

“Oh, I _love_ me,” Tony murmured, grinning wide now, and forced his aching legs into a run once more, back the way he’d come.

*****

“Come back here!” 

Bruce screamed these words into the emptiness only to find them swallowed, as trapped in the void as he was himself. He slammed his fists against one another, since there was nothing else in this space that was solid, and roared in silent fury. “ _Come back!_ ” His fists felt bloody, knuckles broken open against one another, a thin spray disappearing into nothingness that was worse than the Other Guy, worse than the darkness that enveloped him when rage took over. There was no peace here, no giving way, nothing to dull the horror of being trapped inside while his outside rampaged. Somewhere far away in his mind, where he couldn’t reach, he could feel what Fix-It was doing and thinking, and he knew, suddenly and maddeningly, that he only could because Fix-It _wanted_ it.

A dream came to him unbidden, forging a landscape of broken buildings and devastated streets. There, Bruce fumed and seethed, screaming fury that echoed all around. He tore trees out by their roots, smashed them into cars, punched holes in the ground, in structures. He picked up boulders and threw them far into the air, jumped over buildings to land with smashing feet, leave craters. People ran from him, screaming, and he liked that most, wanting to snatch some of them up in his huge white hands and toss them at the the others who gawked and pointed as he rampaged. Through it all, the Other Guy remained silent, distant, but Bruce could feel him watching as he fumed and seethed and tore his world apart with his own hands. With his own pale, small, puny…

*****

Every entrance and exit to the old nuclear base was covered. SHIELD had people inside and out, and scientists worked frantically to calibrate systems and run analyses as Fury watched. They’d be ready. There was no other option.

Fury opened a communication to Agent Romanov. “Ready?”

“Plan is in place. Waiting for your order.” Natasha glanced at the women at her side. They wore similar expressions - eyes pinched slightly with worry, but mostly solid, stoic. Betty, she could tell, still didn’t like the plan at all, and Pepper didn’t like it much better, but they both understood the necessity. “On your command, sir.”

Fury took one last look around at all the faces turning to him, nodding at each. “Ready as we’ll ever be, agent. Get going.”

“Confirmed,” Natasha said, cutting off the feed. “Ready?” Both Betty and Pepper were silent, but their nods were firm. Inside, Natasha felt both pride in and concern for her companions, but it didn’t show in her impassive expression. She nodded in return, opened the door quietly, and the three women went their separate ways.

*****

“Of course, my data is incomplete,” the AI noted as the air around Hill and her assistant lit with maps and equations. “Nonetheless, I think you might find this data helpful in pinpointing...yes, precisely that.” A light appeared where Hill’s assistant pressed a finger, and the entire map shifted that direction. “Very good sir. Adjusting connections now.” Lights danced toward one another in the air, merging with a whirr, glowing brighter with every contact. Soon, the room around them shone with blues and silvers, power humming and pulsing along connected lines and shapes, the network reforging itself in front of their eyes. 

“We’re in,” Hill said into her earpiece.

“Good work,” Fury answered on the other end. “Give Galaga the night off.”

Hill glanced at the man standing in the center of the lights, admiring his work, and waited for him to catch her gaze. When he did, she jerked her head toward the elevator. He frowned, but didn’t argue, and Hill waited until the doors closed behind him before doing anything else. When he was gone, she moved to the terminal and connected her extra communicator to the system.

“Data uploading,” Jarvis announced. “I assume you wish visibility into the remote laboratories while you wait?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Hill replied, taking a step back as the air in front of her lit up with holographic displays.

Stark had more remote labs than SHIELD thought. At least three dozen images coalesced in front of and around Hill, each with a label floating above it. Hill scanned them quickly. “Eliminate any that are empty of life right now.”

“Ma’am,” Jarvis replied a bit curtly. “I am able to show you these laboratories because a part of my sentience exists in them all."

“Organic life,” Hill corrected, tapping a foot.

“To be clear, a not-insubstantial portion of my circuitry is -”

“ _Human_ life, then,” Hill shot back, crossing arms over her chest again. “Or...whatever Banner is these days.” As suspected, all but one of the laboratory displays winked out of existence, and the remaining one spread out to stretch across the Macassar ebony hardwood. Dots lit up in a dozen different places where humans could be found. Hill’s lips curled at the edges, a hint of a smile. Into her comm, she said, “Got it.”

“Five minutes to complete download,” Jarvis said, both around her and in her ear. “Director Fury, I suggest you prepare to connect to my mainframe in four.”

*****

...hands. Bruce looked down at them, dark and dripping, and had no idea how they had become so. A moment before, he’d been tearing the world down around him, and now...

Where was he?

A voice - quiet, far away, drifted through his mind. _LOOK. **SEE**._ Bruce knew immediately that he didn’t want to and squeezed his eyes shut tight, shaking his head as he tried to block out what was there to see. Whatever it was, he knew knew that he couldn’t face it. Not and survive. Facing it would tear him apart, break him open and leave him ruined.

_NO_ , the voice came again. _LOOK_.

“This isn’t my memory!” Bruce protested, though he didn’t know why. He realized he was on his knees when something wet and warm started soaking through to skin. He started, fell backward, and coughed as the air grew acrid and warm.

Fire. Oh, god, _fire_.

Despite himself, Bruce’s eyes flew open, searching for the source of the smoke, for an exit. He caught a glimpse of high windows, out of which smoke billowed. They were open - a way out.

Bruce started forward, but slipped immediately in some liquid that covered the floor, nearly shrieking as his hands found it thick and slippery. Gasoline, or oil, and he was covered in it, he thought. Someone was trying to burn him alive, and an unreasonable belief that Dad was behind it gripped his heart. He scrambled back out of the puddle, scooting along the floor, terrified of standing now and accidentally finding flame. He tried desperately to wipe the stuff off him, but it only smeared, dark and clinging, where his hands went. His throat opened to cry for help, for someone to come -

Something right next to his hand exploded in a sudden burst of light, and Bruce screamed, jerking away, patting his hand quickly as he expected to see flames spread and envelop him. They didn’t, and Bruce could do nothing but stare for a moment. A tiny shard of plastic had embedded in the back of his hand, but that was the only damage. No flames reached him. And as the spark of panic died down a bit, Bruce realized that he wasn’t caught in the conflagration that he’d imagined - that, indeed, the fire wasn’t even a threat at the moment, contained within an old chemical hood that, though the top had broken open, still had its thick glass sides. The flames licked toward ceiling tiles that certainly might catch, but they hadn’t done so yet. He had time.

Several other flashes of light went off in corners, on the floor and ceiling, each one leaving bright marks on Bruce’s vision. They lit up the space for several seconds, one right after the other, and Bruce caught glimpses of his hands and arms and legs, all coated with that thick, dark substance that pooled on on the floor a few feet away, a smear of it leading to where he’d scooted away. He pushed himself back to his feet with the help of whatever was at his back - an overturned desk, he discovered - and whirled toward where he knew the door would be, hoping that no one else was in Woton Hall this late. He’d get out, call 911, then see if -

Eyes lit up in another flash on the floor, freezing Bruce in place. Gray eyes, open and sightless, fading from view in the flickering darkness.

_YES_ , the voice came again as something as thick and dark and heavy as blood unfurled and stretched inside. _NOW YOU SEE_.


	26. Chapter 26

Natasha hated the plan, but she understood its necessity.

Hurrying toward the control room, Natasha didn’t give herself the liberty of thinking about what she was doing. She had a plan, and she intended to follow it. Screams not from this mission followed her down hallways, only pushing her faster; she had to find the controls for the Hulk lab, and she knew they couldn’t be far away.

Pepper had provided as detailed a map of the facility as she could, but he’d only managed access to the outer regions. Damaged protocols kept her out of the rest, but Clint’s debrief a few weeks before was still fresh, and so Natasha followed paths her partner set out, trusting his eyes. Focused on the moment, she refused to let herself worry about Clint, though his crumpled form haunted the back of her mind, threatening to come to the fore, demand response.

“Barton can take care of himself,” Natasha whispered. It didn’t help.

Reaching the control room did, though. Natasha found it after a few more turns, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. She didn’t know the room, and the controls were older than she’d been trained on, but she felt certain she could figure them out. Now all she had to do was wait and see if the others could manage their parts in the plan, then…

Doubt there. Pepper had been through a lot, but hadn’t really been in a fight. And Betty - well, she was tough, certainly, the daughter of a general, but she was also still clearly taken with Bruce. They weren’t trained for this, her partners, and any wrong move could lead to trouble for the hostages, maybe even…

She considered contacting Fury, but thought better of it. He’d trusted her to navigate this less-than-ideal situation, and she needed to live up to those expectations, for everyone’s sake.

“In place,” Natasha said on the frequency reserved for her, Betty, and Pepper. “Let me know when you’re ready.” She looked at the controls and mentally started plotting her path through firewalls to the local computer core.

“Need a minute,” Pepper responded soon after, and Natasha could hear the woman panting. Something was up. Nothing came in from Betty. Shit. And so, she waited.

*****

Damn, damn, damn. Tony moved his cache. Again. Without letting anyone, even Jarvis, know.

Pepper understood Tony’s paranoia, but hell, it made things difficult. Not only in their relationship, but in this moment, when she was trying desperately to find a way to save him. The room in which, only three months ago, he’d stored all his experimental items had been cleaned and scrubbed, with no sign of where Tony might have moved what was within.

Okay, Pepper got it. Obie had betrayed them both, and plenty of others before him had gotten close enough to cause Tony worry. It didn’t surprise her that Tony moved his experiments about on a regular basis, and didn’t log the new locations. What did surprise her, though, was the fact that even defined, stable repulsor models had been removed from this storage, the one he’d told her about, the one on file with his AI.

Closing her eyes a moment and trying to think, Pepper stood in the middle of the empty room. “Jarvis,” she said into the wristband she’d brought with her, “can you tell me where anything that’s part of the Iron Man armor is - ”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” came the answer, and Jarvis’ voice did sound contrite, “but I am unable, at the moment, to access anything related to the armor, and very little of the information contained in this location’s systems.”

Pepper expected as much, and slumped against the wall, not sure what to do next. The silence lasted while she tried to come up with alternatives. They needed _something_ \- more than their fists, more than Natasha’s guns, more than they had right now. Without it, the plan would fall apart, and they were all in a hell of a lot of danger. She scoured her memory for anything that could lead her to one of Tony’s caches, and came up empty. She’d never been here, and Tony had kept the use of this place almost entirely secret.

“ _Dammit_ ,” she in a whisper, pressing her forehead to the wall. “If Tony would just...if I could…” A hand went to her eyes, pressing against them as the weight of being in this position settled on her back and tried to press her down. 

“Ma’am,” Jarvis interjected quietly from her wrist. “Though I cannot help directly, I believe I can be of some assistance. Shall I try?”

“Yes, Jarvis, please.” Pepper pushed away from the wall, stepping toward the only door to this room, wrist held to her mouth even though she knew it wasn’t necessary. “Share anything you have.”

The silence hung in the air, and Pepper held her breath until a hologram sprung from the wristband she wore and laid out out a pattern on floor of the room. A map, one that wasn’t familiar. It remained a few seconds, then shifted to another configuration - still unfamiliar. The images changed every few seconds, Pepper scanning each for something she remembered, until - 

“Hold,” Pepper said, and the pattern froze, and she traced a line down corridors that matched almost exactly to those she’d seen in the blueprints for the tower, those that had laid the foundation for it. The tower had a hidden internal spot, a panic room, in its depths, and this layout was almost exactly the same. This must be the precursor, and Pepper knew it would have weapons.

Pepper broke into a run, heading for the nearest stairwell back down. Natasha came over the comm just as she hit the bottom of the stairs. “Need a minute here,” she panted, not slowing down. Betty was likely already in place, which meant she didn’t have much time. She wanted to ask Natasha to wait, but knew better. The plan was in motion, and Pepper was just added security. The others would move without her if need be.

Pepper ran faster, turning corners hard enough to bounce off walls.

*****

Tony had made hundreds of genius moves in his life, more often than not realizing this only after the fact. He couldn’t keep up with his brain as it thought a hundred steps ahead and had learned long ago simply to trust that his instinct was usually intellect in disguise. So it didn’t surprise him that his ten-year-old self had created a stash in the one place the boy could go on autopilot: the panic room.

Running wasn’t easy. All his muscles hurt, as well as parts that he was pretty sure were something other than muscle, and his hands tied behind his back kept him off balance, but Tony managed decent time getting down the stairs and onto the floor he needed. Everything opened to this location - maintenance ducts, air flows, stairs, everything - since this was the Stark’s last hope in case of attack. The floor wasn’t designed for stealth, but for speed, with concrete corridors that winded past a number of potential ambush locations and armed turrets to the same central room. Triple cased in concrete, reinforced with adamantium, the panic room was impenetrable by enemies...but easily enough accessed by a ten-year-old genius who was making damned sure he wouldn’t be caught and dragged in front of Dad a second time.

The room had six entrances from six different locations, all of which were keyed to voice and fingerprint scans. In the past, Jarvis had controlled these locks and kept the list of those allowed to enter current, but Jarvis, Tony knew, wasn’t in control of the facility right now. He had to hope that there was enough in the local system’s decades-old memory to let him in.

“Please, please,” Tony muttered as he rounded a corner and found a door. Awkwardly, he managed to lift his left hand high enough to reach the touchpad, though his shoulders complained loudly, and pressed his thumb and forefinger to it. Nothing happened.

“Fucking hell in a handbasket,” Tony muttered, wishing he could tear the touchpad off the wall. His fingers curled around it and squeezed as he gritted teeth and muttered things much worse.

“Voice pattern recognized,” a female voice entoned, quiet and close. “Mr. Stark, you may enter.” Tony blinked, but wasted no time getting through the opening and into the space beyond.

As in most things, the Stark family had spared no expense in making this space everything it should be. Though the corridors here were plain concrete, the floor inside was marble, and thick, now-dusty rugs lay throughout. The room was round and open, but several dividers had been set up to make the place livable, in case they had to settle a while. Tony’s door opened into the kitchen, still fully stocked and ready to support a family of three for six months if necessary. Lights flickered on slowly, leaving Tony blinking a moment before he ran to the counter and sought with fumbling hands anything sharp enough to cut the ropes still holding his wrists. In a cupboard only twenty feet away, his younger self had meticulously stashed not only keys to every building and room on this base, but also food, communicators, all manner of scrap electronics, and half a dozen rudimentary weapons he’d designed as a kid. He’d stored enough down here that his young self estimated he could live two months or more in hiding while still being able to access the outside world. And he’d never used it, never even came back down here except to stash things away and feel smug about it, until now.

“You brilliant kid you,” Tony muttered, patting his own back. then froze as something clattered to the floor in the room beyond. Dammit - too soon to gloat. He crouched quickly behind the island in the kitchen and hoped he’d hadn’t been heard. Padding footsteps coming closer suggested he had. Shit.

Scrambling quietly on the floor, Tony looked for anything he might be able to wield as a weapon as those slow and deliberate footsteps got closer. Damn his father for his hatred of clutter - there was nothing on the floor but a decaying rug and a few dust bunnies. Tony would have at least found a wallet or a plate or something on his own floor, but here - nothing. All Tony could do was crouch low and tight against the island, hoping whoever was coming would be lazy in searching the space, and that the lights still working their way to full illumination would give him enough shadow to hide. 

Footsteps halted at the door, and Tony’s heart jumped in his chest. Wait. Wait.

“Tony?” Pepper’s voice was shaky; he heard her pull some kind of weapon and ready it, and his heart swelled with pride and appreciation. Cautious and forward and worried for him and everything Pepper should be. He loved her even more for both that strength and vulnerability.

“Don’t shoot,” Tony responded, standing slowly and smiling. He poked his head above the island and caught sight of Pepper before he ducked again, just in case there were others with her. “Or, at least, let me get you a cooler weapon first. I’ve got a couple in the cupboard over - ”

The gun clattered to the counter, and Tony smiled harder as Pepper ran around the island and wrapped long arms around him. She pulled him to his feet, ignoring his protests, and pressed him into the counter. “Tony!” 

Pepper held him tight, almost too tight, but Tony sighed into the sensation, realizing only then how tense and, if he were honest, afraid he’d been. He responded automatically, awkward banter filling the silence as soon as it began to stretch. “I...meant to tell you about all this, but then there were slug-men, and - ”

“Liar,” Pepper interrupted without malice, and hugged Tony tighter as she looked around for something to use to get his hands free. “But I know why you keep secrets.” She felt Tony crumple a little with that, but pretended it didn’t happen. “Could use some help getting you free, though.” She leaned back, smiling at him softly. “There are, like, a hundred drawers in here.”

“Knives are in number seventeen,” Tony responded, jerking his head in that general direction. Pepper went to a drawer. “Nope, that’s fourteen. Stop, wait, you’re going the wrong way.” She found the drawer with only a few more missteps, and soon Tony’s numb hands were free and starting to tingle painfully. “Don’t think I’m ungrateful, hon,” he murmured as he flexed his hands, wincing even as he leaned a shoulder against her, “but...why exactly are you here?”

“ _Someone_ had to save your ass,” she answered, picking up the gun again, flashing him another smile that made his chest ache. “Tony, we need repulsors, and Jarvis can’t locate them for us.”

“We?” Pepper’s expression told Tony that the answer would have to wait, so he shrugged and got moving. “Gotcha covered. Come on.”


	27. Chapter 27

Gray eyes looked upward through a mass of blood and damage, and Bruce couldn’t turn away from them. His hands felt warm, and sticky, and dripped at the same pace as the darkness at the edge of that skull at his feet spread.

The man was dead. He hadn’t been for long.

Bruce’s knees were wet with blood still warm, and something huge and heavy hung at his back. He felt weak and strong, horrid and elated. Torn.

“Hulk,” Bruce managed, though his knees caved. “I...should I...

_LOOK_ , a voice came from inside and behind, and Bruce shuddered. He didn’t want to. It was too much. He turned away toward what had been fire and darkness a moment before and flung himself that direction, only to find a great green wall had appeared, blocking any exit. Bruce pounded on it with bloody fists, and though it was fleshy, it didn’t give. Not an inch.

“Hulk, no, please...please don’t do this to us.” Bruce’s voice came out weak and thready, full of fear.

_MUST_ , came Hulk’s answer as the wall coalesced. Two great green hands settled on Bruce’s shoulders. They turned him, slowly, gently, back toward the memory, and held him on his feet when his knees buckled as time slid backward, the fire dissipated, and the crumpled form on the floor got back to its feet and hovered in the doorway, just as he had that horrible night, when the real nightmares began. He recognized immediately this moment, and though he covered his eyes with shaking hands, they didn’t block the image or make the memory stop.

Under the fluorescents, the man’s skin was almost luminous, so pale it was from years without sunlight. Flesh hung on his bones, cheeks sunken, and the clothes he wore were far too big for his form and fifteen years out of date. But his eyes were still sharp, and his presence was more than enough to suck the air out of the room.

“Well, well, Bruce.” Dad’s voice was still as deep and resonant and terrifying as ever, and Bruce found himself scrambling out of his chair at the now-upright desk where he’d been studying quietly. “Like father, like son.”

*****

Betty took her place, pacing in front of the bay of terminals, chewing her lip as she waited impatiently for Natasha to get them online. More than once, she ran a hand across the keyboard, pressed buttons randomly, hoping something would happen. The longer Bruce remained in this form, the worse off he’d be; she knew it drained him and understood how horrible he’d feel if he discovered the damage Fix-It had done.

No, not if. When. _When_ he discovered it. Bruce was coming out of this, dammit, even if she had to figure out a way to go in after him. She had the journal and was no stranger to Bruce’s dream metaphors - or to his ego. When she’d suggested this plan of action, she knew what she was getting into, and though Pepper and Natasha knew it, too, neither had disagreed.

“In place,” she told Natasha. The terminals in front of her flickered a moment, but the light on the camera in the ceiling remained black. “Ready to do this when you are.”

“On it,” came Natasha’s reply. Betty heard keys clicking rapidly in the background and wondered what it was like to have the kind of knowledge that woman carried behind her blank expression. Over the years, her own face in the mirror had taken on aspects of that distance, starting when Bruce came back, then left a second time. It didn’t matter that she understood, that she knew it was necessary, since her father would never stop hunting him. She’d still pulled away from friends, family, and profession, moving through the motions of life without actually experiencing it.

Seeing Hulk in New York, fighting the aliens, had startled her back into existence for a moment, but she knew before Fury said anything that Bruce would fade and disappear again the moment the battle was done. But she’d been wrong - again, she understood, but this time, something inside her flared when she learned, and the face that stared back from the mirror after Pepper’s call had been full of purpose. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to see Bruce before this was all over.

“Hurry up,” Betty found herself saying, tapping the journal she still held in her hands against her legs impatiently. “I’m ready for that son of a bitch.” 

*****

Fix-It wiped vomit and spit from his face with a piece of shirt he tore off Barton’s limp body, then dumped the mess on top of the man. “Prick,” he grunted, then grabbed him by one arm and dragged him into the airplane’s storage space, dumping his body through a hole in the floor and watching it collapse bonelessly on top of the suitcases and supplies Stark always had on board. Clint moaned softly - so, not dead yet - but didn’t move otherwise. Fix-It turned the latch, changed the combination code, and left him there.

“Keep it locked,” he told the pilot, who’d been paid a substantial sum by a sleepwalking Bruce about a month ago. In the briefcase had also been the name of the man’s two ex-wives, their four children, and addresses and routines for them all - extra insurance to ensure compliance. The pilot, in turn, did what he was told and grounded one of Stark’s jets, claiming a broken compass. It had idled in a hangar off Stark property, slowly stocking up for the mission Fix-It had planned.

Now, the pilot nodded - as much communication as he’d managed in the entire trip trip - and unbuckled to get his gun from behind the seat and guard the hold. Fix-It gave a toothy grin and a thumbs up and headed for the open jet door, mind racing. 

Something was happening inside - both inside his head and inside this facility - something he couldn’t see, and he didn’t like it. Things were going to shit. Fix-It tasted blood, and his bottom lip felt swollen from where the archer had managed a sucker kick. The best piece of insurance he’d had ran off into the maintenance tunnels, the only part of the facility Banner hadn’t seen, and Pepper brought SHIELD - and Betty - in ahead of schedule. Oh, he’d expected them to be involved, sure, but not at Pepper’s _request_. He’d been naive to think Tony had actually been honest with Bruce when he lied about Pepper knowing everything they were doing.

Rookie error. Fix-It snarled as he jumped out of the plane and wanted to pound his fists into the concrete runway in frustration. But that would give big greenie a chance he couldn’t risk, not with his mind already roiling under the surface. 

No. He’d fucked up once already. No more slip-ups, no more surprises. Fix-It was in his element now in this secret lab, the kind of place that birthed him, that gave him life and power. Here, he could take on anything, even the worst monsters, and come out on top.

“Fix-It’s going free tonight,” he growled into the emptiness, and smiled as he pulled out the suitcase he’d long ago stashed for the occasion.

*****

“Wonder what it is about Banners that draw them toward nuclear research?” Dad took a step into the room, and Bruce backed away several more, until his back found the filing cabinets. His hands gripped the metal handles and held on tightly, keeping him on his feet. The older Banner’s gray eyes watched the movement, took in the trembling in Bruce’s arms, and looked pained. He stopped moving. “Bruce?”

“Brian.” Bruce’s voice was shaky, which made him grip those handles tighter and grit teeth for control. “Dad. You can’t be here. They wouldn’t just let you _out_.”

Brian Banner smiled, eyes sad. “You’re still scared of me.”

“Hell _yes_ I’m still scared of you,” Bruce shot back, voice getting stronger, the quiver in his arms bleeding toward fury. The lab - the _one place_ where Bruce had ever felt safe and in control - and his father had found it, found _him_ , somehow. Everyone told him that the man would be locked up forever, that his kind of crazy couldn’t be cured, that he’d be, at best, a study subject until his death. Yet here he was, at Bruce’s doorstep, with sad eyes and outstretched hands, looking at Bruce with that same pathetic expression to which his mother had caved a hundred times before the man finally beat her to death. “Get out. Get away from me.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Brian sighed, shoulders slumping a little. “You stopped coming to see me so long ago, so...no way you could know the progress I’ve made.” He took another step into the room. “I know I’ve hurt you so badly, and that maybe you can’t ever forgive me, but -”

_**“Don’t.”**_ Bruce had to fight the scream that came to his throat. He wanted to call for help, wanted to yell at the man to leave him alone, wanted, just - oh, just wanted all this gone and buried and behind him forever. How could they have let him out? Why didn’t anyone warn him? “Dad, _Brian_ , just...no.” Something deep inside coiled and stirred and threatened release, and Bruce didn’t want to stick around to find out what it was.

“Bruce,” Brian said tenderly, putting out a hand in his son’s direction. “I - I know how bad it is between us, and I don’t expect you to want me in your life. Just please, _please_ , hear me out. I’m here for _your_ sake.”

“How did you get out?” Bruce pulled himself across the file cabinets handle by handle, working toward the back entrance, hoping his father didn’t know it existed, hoping he was here alone. “They wouldn’t just let you out. Not without telling me.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Brian agreed, once again stopping as Bruce’s shoulder hit a wall and he immediately put his back to it. “I had to get out, to - to help you, before -”

The barked laughter that erupted from Bruce’s throat startled him. “ _Help_ me?” Flames burst in his belly, and he felt his lips curl in a snarl. “ _God_ , Brian.” He felt violated and betrayed, his safe spot now tainted. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Dad took several quick steps forward, and Bruce’s body lit with the need to run. “Bruce, Bruce - please listen to me,” Dad begged. “You _can’t_ do this research; it’s too dangerous. Believe me, I know - I know what it can do to someone like - ”

“Like _**you**_?” That thing in Bruce’s belly uncoiled and bled slowly to the surface, bringing with it a deep rumble in his chest that felt like thunder and danger and something else just as delicious. “Like the drunken crazy nightmare that you were, our whole lives?” He shoved away from the wall, eyes burning, teeth gritted tight. “Stay out of my life, you sick old fuck, or I _swear_ , I’ll -”

“See?” Dad was there in front of him, suddenly, gray eyes bright and pleading, a hand grasping his son’s shoulder. His tone went sad, and he tried to touch Bruce’s cheek. 

Bruce trembled, skin on fire, afraid of what he’d do if he moved, equally afraid of what would happen if he didn’t. Dad’s hand touched his cheek gently, and Bruce was surprised that his fingers didn’t crack, peel and bleed. He tried to back away, but something in him wouldn’t let him. Something huge and heavy held him in place, burning hate Dad’s direction, fists clenched at his sides, teeth pressed together so hard he heard them cracking.

“Just like me,” Dad whispered, and the heat inside Bruce exploded, filling muscle, bleeding through skin, taking over.

“No,” Bruce growled, distant from himself now, somehow not inhabiting the space that was his. The man took a step back, and Bruce felt himself smile as Brian tripped over an overturned chair and went down hard. “No, I’m _nothing_ like you.” 

His body acted on his own; Bruce watched, detached, as his foot caught Brian full in the stomach and sent him skidding across the concrete floor into a metal and glass contraption Bruce assumed was a decades-old fume hood. The man grunted pain, hands scrambling against the glass of the hood, trying to find purchase and get to his feet. It brought laughter to Bruce’s throat that wasn’t his at all. He wasn’t in control, knew it to his core, and part of him wanted nothing more than to feed that rage, let it grow and consume him and take him over.

Dad got to his feet and turned, that edge of anger in eyes the kind that still haunted Bruce’s dreams. “Give me a chance,” he pleaded, his voice dangerous enough to make Bruce’s fists clench again, “and I can fix this.”

“You should’ve stayed down.” Bruce recognized his voice, but couldn’t remember thinking those words, much less speaking them. He couldn’t feel his body, and darkness threatened to take him down, darkness that felt safe and warm and promised escape...

_NO_ , Hulk demanded. _LOOK_. And Bruce did; he looked at that precise moment, as his father rushed forward and shoved meaty hands against his son’s chest, grey eyes trying to hold him through will alone. Bruce stumbled back with the sudden force, and Dad said something that had spittle flying from his lips, but Bruce didn’t hear because everything was suddenly motion and action and he was spinning and grabbing the old man’s head and -

The safety glass on fume hoods is required to be at least ¼” laminated, conforming to ANSI 297.1 for 400-foot-pound impact, and to CPSC 16 CFR 1201 for Category II Safety Glazing. Bruce knew this because he had been in charge of setting them up in the lab where he hoped to do his postdoctorate work, a little brown-nosing in return for a chance to work at the cutting edge of the research he’d hoped would propel him into a stunning career. Safety glass like that might withstand the force of a sledgehammer, and even some small pistol fire. So he couldn’t have expected, couldn’t have known, that when he spun the man around and slammed his face into the glass wall behind them both, that it would, that it even _could_ …

The glass shattered, and Dad’s face went through it, and the world slowed long enough for Bruce to watch a hundred wounds open in that flesh as the older Banner’s expression went slack, his body crumpling to the floor bonelessly. Grey eyes, though, remained open, staring Bruce’s direction, the only signs of a life fading fast - signs he remembered, because Mom showed them in her last moments, too.

In his head, Bruce shrieked and backed away, ran for the stairs, found an emergency phone and called for help. In his head, he ran back down and held his father’s hand until the paramedics arrived, then followed them to the ambulance, still holding closed one of the worst wounds until they could take over. In his head, his father looked at him and forgave him silently as they rushed him into the back of an ambulance and to a hospital where miraculous surgeons would be ready to fight for Brian Banner’s life like they never got the chance to with his wife…

And in the moment, Bruce watched himself stand still as a pool of blood formed around his feet. “There,” he said, aloud. “Fixed.”


	28. Chapter 28

Even with help from Stark tower, hacking Tony’s Hulk lab proved difficult. Natasha had been well-trained in this kind of espionage, and though it galled her to admit it, she’d never seen any security as sophisticated as this. But Jarvis was on her wrist, providing direction now that Hill and Galaga managed to free his core AI from the restraints that had been built around it, and they made slow progress.

“Anything?” Betty’s voice was pinched, and she was drumming her fingers on the communicator in her ear. Natasha’s head rang with Betty’s impatience, which wasn’t helping.

“Almost,” Natasha lied, barely remembering to unclench her jaw to make it believable. If she could just get past even one of the barriers completely, she could retrace the encryption and use the pattern to -

“Agent Romanoff,” Tony’s voice came from Pepper’s communicator. “That system’s set to wipe everything in the case of a breach.”

“Precisely why I freed your AI buddy before starting,” Natasha shot back, lips curling almost imperceptibly to hear the man not only alive, but talking. And, apparently, considering the sound of their feet on the corridor, moving.

“ _Jarvis_ is online? Well, hell, why didn’t you say so?” Tony’s voice echoed on the comm, suggesting he was directing at one wall, then another. “Hey, buddy, help us out here!”

“Sir,” came Jarvis, both from the wristband Natasha wore and as an echo across the comm from Pepper’s band, “My access codes to this facility have been erased. I am assisting Ms. Potts, Romanov and Ross from the tower.”

Silence followed, stretching long enough to be of concern. Natasha paused in her work, listening carefully, but Jarvis didn’t wait. “Ms. Potts?” the AI’s voice echoed over the comm. “Sir, are you both still all right?”

Pepper’s chuckle caught Natasha off guard. 

“Not cool,” Tony finally said, voice coming from a distance. “I’ve been mostly unconscious for a night. Even _I_ need time to process every now and then.”

“First time _I’ve_ seen,” Pepper returned. “Oh, Natasha, I’m going to frame this picture and give it to you.”

Tony grumbled. Natasha could almost hear him cross his arms over his chest. “She hacked. My tower. I can be a little surprised.” 

“Can we get _on_ with this?” Betty interrupted, fingers still drumming. “I can hear him coming. We don’t have much time.”

The sound of a repulsor charging came across Pepper’s communicator just as Natasha broke through the first security barrier. “We don’t need much,” the agent answered, and transferred her work to the terminal nearest Pepper’s location. 

“Ten seconds,” Tony answered, already at work on the terminal nearby. Natasha could hear Pepper rummaging through things in the background as Tony worked on a keyboard, mumbling about how antiquated typing was. “Pepper filled me in on the plan. Betty Ross, you crazy lady, I sure hope you’re ready for this. Oh, and, uh, nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure,” Betty responded, though to which part wasn’t clear. She counted seconds; the camera and monitor came to life at nine, and she went to work immediately.

“Hey Fix-It, you gray-skinned prick!” Betty waved at the camera, staring straight into it as the terminals in front of her scanned all the cameras in the underground facility to determine his location. “Turn yourself in now, and I promise…” She held up the yellow journal, showing it to the camera, seeing her own face disappear behind it on one of the screens on her left. “I won’t use this.”

*****

Dammit. _Dammit_. Lights came on the the corridors, lights that shouldn’t have been accessible, and Fix-It knew that SHIELD and that Potts bitch had the jump on him. Grunting frustration, he opened the suitcase and pulled on the suit; it was a bit tight, and the jacket wouldn’t fit his shoulders, but the shirt and pants did just fine. Those alone gave him plenty of pocket space, and he stuffed syringes into every one. Each held just enough of the serum Banner and Stark had been working on to keep any transformation at bay for a few seconds - all he’d need to re-assert control if anything untoward happened. 

And the packet in the front pocket was there, safe. Perfect.

He took out the phone he’d stashed last, flipping it open and putting the tiny thing to his ear. When the other end connected, he grinned. “Good; still there. Extraction in twenty?”

A gruff voice answered, staticky, but comprehensible. “We’ll be hovering in ten. Give the signal when you’re ready.”

Fix-It closed the phone without a response and tucked it in his left pants pocket, a grin appearing once more. “Ready or not,” he grunted as he found the tunnel he wanted and started down it, huge feet booming along the hallway. “Here I come.”

Oh, it was good to be out, to feel his hands on the walls, his feet on the floor, clothes brushing his skin. It was good to feel real for once, more than just an idea in the back of his own mind, to be in control, calling the shots. He’d waited a decade or longer. This...this was Fix-It time, and he intended to make the most of it. He knew where to go, where to look for the last bit of data he needed to ensure his partners could help him keep the other two buried, and -

A terminal on the wall next to him whined and blinked to life. On it, Betty Ross, holding something small and yellow in her hands that made Fix-It freeze and worry for the first time since he’d emerged. He barely made out her words, he was so fixated on the object, on trying to figure out what it was, why it mattered…

A flash, then, of him fading into the background as Banner woke and reached under the bed, seeking the journal in which he kept his dreams. That yellow journal he’d started once he settled into Stark Tower, into which he dutifully recorded every memory of his sleeping world, every strange disembodied thought that came to mind. That book - it held secrets, ones Fix-It couldn’t have getting out.

Snarling, Fix-It felt his way along the wall until he found switches, then started turning them all on. He had no way of knowing where Betty was, though the huge bank of terminals behind her suggested either an observation room or security. He found a microphone and seized it, leaning into it slowly. “Betty Ross,” he snarled, grinning as she startled, cheeks going pale. Good. “I know you. I’ve known you a _long_ time.” He let his eyes roam the parts of Betty that could be seen on the screen, and fairly purred with recognition. “Oh, do I know you, Betty Ross.” He lifted a hand to his lips and swiped them with the back of his hand, eyes locked to the camera he’d just located, waiting for the response he tried to spark.

Betty’s body shuddered involuntarily, stomach churning as she looked into those grey eyes in the camera, all heat and need and hunger that she recognized and responded too all too readily. _Shhh_ , he’d whisper into her ear, calloused hands dragging across her smooth skin, pushing clothes out of the way, lifting her more easily than she could have imagined to press her back into the bed. She’d move and writhe and try to touch him, and he’d pin her wrists, and... 

_Just...let me_. And she had, falling back onto the bed, letting his hands explore, his body press deep, his groans and pants as delicious as his thrusting...

Betty stared at the screen, and shuddered again as that great gray face grinned slowly. “No.” Her hand fell to her side, the journal momentarily forgotten. “Oh, oh no.”

Fix-It grinned wide, thick fingers finding the keypad to open the next room. “‘fraid so” he responded, chuckling. “You really think Banner coulda worked up the nerve?” Now, he laughed, watching Betty back away, hearing something on the other end that sounded like a communicator with someone yelling through it. He couldn’t see a device, but then he could only see Betty from the chest up. “Watch it, lady,” he noted softly as the keypad flashed green and the door unlocked. “Or I might come and find you first.”

“ _Fuck_ you,” Betty’s cracked voice came from the speakers, her face now hidden shadows, and the voice on the other end of that communicator got more urgent. 

Fix-It grinned all the wider, the door in front of him sliding open. “Ready when you are.” He laughed as the cheek he could see paled and Betty stepped out of sight of the camera, then headed through the open doorway to finish the job his sharing had started.

*****

The world refused to come into focus, but Clint didn’t need to see to know a gun was pointing at him. He’d felt that prickling sensation far too many times before. “He’s not going to let us go, you know,” he murmured, his words thick and slurred.

“Yeah,” the pilot answered, keeping the gun aimed at Clint’s head. “Didn’t think he would.”

Clint tried to push himself off the floor, but his stomach and head both churned immediately. He sought cold metal near the door, pressed his forehead to it. “So you know I have to stop him.”

The pilot nodded, and Clint wished he hadn’t been looking that direction as the world swam even more. “Kind of counting on it. Me and my family both.”

_Family_. Clint groaned and closed his eyes, forced himself to a sitting position, doing his best to ignore the reeling, the sick pain in his head that he knew meant something wasn’t okay. He opened his eyes and fought to focus on the pilot, who held the gun on him steadily, almost calmly. His only tension was in his eyes and the set of his mouth, both pursed and prepared. Yeah, this guy was trained. Good.

“Got communication?”

“Not that reaches this far underground.”

“No radio? No phone?”

The man tilted his head, sighing softly. “Would’ve used it by now if I did.”

“Yeah,” Clint agreed. And though his body wanted nothing more than to lay down again and his head felt full of fluid, he managed to catch the pilot’s eyes with his own. “Get me out there.”

“What?” The man glanced out of the still-open door of the plane, scanned carefully enough that Clint appreciated the skill. Then he got an arm under Clint’s shoulders and hefted him to his feet, ignoring the grunts and winces that caused. “You can’t even walk.”

Clint’s legs barely refused to cooperate, but he managed to stand without putting all his weight on the man helping him. “Don’t need to walk,” he answered, “long as you can get me there.” He shoved away enough to get himself situated under the luggage storage above. “Just gotta grab one thing before we go.”

*****

_Hulk?_

Bruce’s mind reached out automatically to that part of himself he had started to accept, started to understand. _Hulk, did you -_ “

_NOT HULK_ , the answer came, clear and loud in his mind, strong enough to set the world at his feet shaking. Bruce’s body still stood before a spreading pool of blood, Brian Banner’s dead gray eyes staring his way. Bruce couldn’t understand how it happened, how his father had ended up there, in front of him, how he hadn’t run and called for help and -

_TOO LATE_ , the answer came in the back of his mind, and that great green barrier that stood between him and the exit surged forward and pressed into him as tiny explosions went off in half a dozen spots in the lab at once, sparking fumes from the now-broken hood and catching papers and equipment with flames. Bruce stumbled back as Hulk moved forward, and then they were picking up the desk and throwing it against the next hood, catching fluorescents that immediately burst and fed the flames, until glass started bulging and metal was too hot to touch and the smoke was starting to choke…

Hulk ran them outside, ran them through the campus and onto the street and miles away, safe from the flames, safe from the cameras that had been watching them in the secret lab, safe from Dad and what had happened. Hulk ran them until they couldn’t run anymore, but he was too tired when he reached Betty’s door, too worn to hold back the gray madness that had been born in that moment when neither other knew how to act. It rose up, and found an outlet, pushing Bruce and Hulk aside, seeking comfort in another’s body, inhaling her scent like honey and lilacs. It needed proof that it was still alive, and her hands were soft; she kissed him, and Hulk could do nothing, could not even rouse Bruce deep inside…

Bruce remembered the morning, waking up with Betty in bed beside him, both of them smelling of smoke and sweat and something richer. He knew what had happened somehow, distantly, but he didn’t have a clear memory of it. And when Betty woke a few minutes later and asked for a replay, he was only too glad to give in, feeling desperate for connection to her and his life. Later, he’d chalked up the haze to yet another one of those strange blank episodes in which he felt lost to equations, and thought, and darkness.

“Oh, my god,” Bruce said aloud, hand going to his mouth as the world around him blanked again, that morning with Betty fading until he and Hulk stood once more in the old pharmacy, Hulk slumped against one broken wall, he leaning heavily on the counter. Dark laughter echoed around them, proof that Fix-it saw and heard.

Hulk growled and pushed off the wall, standing taller, looming over Bruce. His chest heaved, nostrils flaring, and Bruce felt the fear he knew everyone else felt when his alter ego came to the fore in the world outside. _SEE NOW?_ His eyes accused, and Bruce’s heart felt bruised. 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said to the behemoth, and Hulk roared in rage.


	29. Chapter 29

“Betty, don’t let him....Betty!” Pepper swore and nearly tossed her comm across the hall, knowing full well she was being ignored.

Natasha didn’t waste any time trying to get Betty back; she couldn’t blame the woman for being upset, and had to trust she’d keep up her end of the plan. They suspected that Fix-It was heading to the Hulk lab to find a way to lock up the other personalities, possibly for good. He’d been at it a while, though Jarvis could only give hints in those videos of Bruce sleepwalking of what might have transpired, and the dream journal would take some deciphering. SHIELD knew communications had been sent to outside parties, but hadn’t been able to break the encryption without destroying the messages themselves, so whoever was aiding Fix-It was still unknown. Their job: slow him down until Fury can get a failsafe in place and keep this new creature from getting loose.

Only one of the dozen contingencies the agency had in place to deal with Banner should things go south, and not the one they’d most expected. “But whatever this new thing’s got planned, it can’t be good. So we’re locking down the facility, closing all exits, covering the skies and underground to ensure its conspirators can’t - ”

“Can’t what?” Tony strapped on a second repulsor. It was rudimentary, far less precise than he’d like, but it would do until he and Pepper could get something better. 

Natasha paused, picking words carefully as she broke through another security wall in the system. “Set him free.” Tony and Pepper were both silent. “Which we won’t let happen.”

“Damn _straight_ we won’t,” Pepper responded, a hint of a growl in her voice. “Bruce promised me a classic movie night when I got back.” Another repulsor whined to life on the other end of the comm, and Natasha smiled briefly before the terminal in front of her suddenly came to life, opening windows and spreading information to a dozen more monitors and holographic displays in the room.

“Better?” Natasha could hear the smile in Tony’s voice, and for once didn’t care. She saw her own face appear in a display to her left, Tony’s and Pepper’s just above it. She gave them a nod, and didn’t mind the pride with which Tony grinned back. That confidence - right now, they needed it.

Not far below, a loud boom echoed, and the image of Betty hovering in the air broke up a moment. When it pulled together, she’d turned another direction, tucking the book away quickly in a jacket pocket as she pulled a gun and pointed it meaningfully. “Come on, you son of a bitch,” she snarled through gritted teeth, and readied herself as well as any soldier. “You won’t get through me.” 

“On our way, Betty,” Pepper called, she and Tony disappearing from view. “Keep him busy a little while longer.”

Betty smiled, hard and wide, as Natasha finished preparations. “My pleasure.”

*****

Fix-It felt Bruce caving and Big Green losing himself to rage. Both together pulled at him, threatened his position. He stumbled a moment against the wall, snarling, beating a fist into it until he drew blood.

Fine. One syringe. He injected directly in the spot he’d practiced in his neck, wincing as the solution burned through veins and spread through his body. It calmed the panic and the rage, though - enough to keep him on top for a while longer.

“You’re not getting out, freak,” Fix-It murmured under his breath, pausing long enough to sniff the air and pick a corridor. He had plenty of that experimental serum left, several ready syringes full, but that didn’t change the fact that he needed to hurry. He had to find Betty and that journal before he could finish this experiment, which needed to happen before his buddies battered its way through SHIELD’s defenses to pick him up. Ready to put this behind him and start a new life - away from Tony Stark and the torture he called help, away from Betty and Pepper and SHIELD and everyone else who’d kept them weak all these years - Fix-It ran through the corridors, following Betty’s scent of flowers and fear.

He was done with weakness. Now that he was in charge, Fix-It wanted _power_. And that meant taking out any chance of the information in that little yellow book ever getting used against him.

“Give ya one chance, honey,” he bellowed down the hallway, knowing his voice would reach her. She was close; he could smell her now, honey and sweat and gun oil and skin. “Drop the book and run, and I won’t exact a price from your pretty hide.” His hand closed on a door handle.

“Back off and give us Bruce back, and I won’t cut a hole in your chest,” she answered from a speaker nearby. Her voice trembled, though, and another scent hit the air. Fear? Oh, yes - that’s what it was.

Fix-It grinned wide. “Lady, you don’t have the -”

He felt the bullets before he heard the gun, like a massive fist right in the middle of his chest. Again and again, the gun now audible, the muzzle flashing through the hole they’d made in the door. Betty stood inside, feet planted, arms extended as she emptied the run right in the center of Fix-It’s chest, never once hesitating.

“Holy...shit.” Fix-It stumbled back against the wall behind him, eyes wide, looking over the gun at the woman still firing at him. Surprise gave way to pain, searing and wet and centered in a red and gray mess in the middle of him, and he’d never hated anyone so much as he hated Betty Ross right then.

Betty lowered the gun and reloaded, eyes widening a little as she watched blood bloom on Fix-It’s chest. From across the room, she could hear Pepper on the comm she’d tossed away, screaming at her to stick to the plan and run. She knew Pepper would be worried, Natasha disappointed, but at that moment, all she wanted was to see Bruce, even if just for one last time.

Fix-It slumped back against the wall, a massive hand leaving a bloody print there as Betty stared him down, settled her stance. “You fucking _bitch_ ,” he growled, knees buckling, the floor rattling as he landed heavily.

“I gave you a chance,” Betty shot back. Her voice quavered, though, and she blinked rapidly as she pointed the gun at him again. “Now give him the fuck back, or I’ll keep going until I can see the wall behind you.”

Fix-It laughed and coughed, setting off a wet gurgle somewhere deep in his chest. The scent of fear and hate and something desperate lifted from her skin, and she couldn’t hide the need in her eyes. Soldier’s daughter. Ha. Blood spattered his lips, the wall beside him, and he shook his head, grimacing with the pain. He wasn’t about to give up for love - hers, or anyone else’s. Love was just pain wearing a pretty hat. 

But he couldn’t have her tearing him to pieces either. And so Fix-It relaxed his grip a moment, long enough for the rage and the panic inside him to glimpse the outside, for grey eyes to flash green, bleed to brown. For Betty to see who they all were, all at once.

And then, Fix-It collapsed. “He ain’t never coming back,” he hissed, eyes burning as they started to fade. “You just made sure o’ that.” The comm on the floor behind her went crazy as she faltered, and took a step forward, and lowered that gun just enough as his eyes fluttered closed...

“Bruce.” Betty’s hands shook, and the gun pointed away, just for a moment.

Fix-It kicked the now-open door hard enough to launch it off its hinges and straight into Betty. She screamed and fired again, but the bullet went wild as the door hit her. He was on his feet as soon as she was down, kicking the gun away and balling a fist in her hair to pull her back to her feet. “Sap,” he growled, speckling her face with spittle and blood. She hung limp from his grip, unresponsive, so Fix-It sniffed and let her drop. He wiped his bloody hand on her jacket, then fished the journal out of her pocket, flipping through it quickly. It was nearly full, Bruce’s metaphors filling the pages. 

“Shoulda just dropped it,” Fix-It murmured, tucking the book into a pocket. He grabbed Betty’s legs, ignoring her moans as he dragged her with him. Bruce railed and Hulk howled inside, but Fix-It kept control. He was minutes away from freedom, and no ex-girlfriend with hollow points was going to keep him from his goal. He scooped up the comm as he passed it, chuckling as he held it to a lip that had already healed from the archer’s kick. “You want her alive,” he told the device, ignoring the silence on the other end, “you’ll stay out of my way.”


	30. Chapter 30

“Stop.” Clint crumpled to the ground, sliding along behind the pilot as he fell. “Don’t…”

The pilot grunted, but stopped. “You said keep going no matter what.”

Clint didn’t remember saying that, but then, everything after that big gray monster punched him was fuzzy. He looked around where they were, seeking focus. “No, here’s...good. Okay. Stop.”

The pilot frowned, but helped Clint settle on the floor with his back against a nearby wall. “I leave you here, I may as well be killing you myself.” He’d heard the shots and the screams, could hear now that giant pounding away against something hard enough to rattle the walls even here. “How the hell you gonna get away from that monster?”

Clint half-smiled. “Take a look.” He tapped an image painted on the wall in red and gray. “Escape tube. Stark pre-programmed these when he took over, so it’ll head to the nearest air strip.” He tried to smile, but his face wouldn’t comply. “I’ll be gone before you are.”

The pilot scanned the wall. Four more pods lined it. “I’ll get the others, then, rally them here.” He got to his feet, his stride determined.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Clint shook his head quickly, though it left the room spinning. “You don’t even know where they are, and we can’t risk the communicators. Stark knows about the plane, so assume you’ll have passengers. Best thing you can do is get back and be ready for them.” He tried to fix the pilot with a stare, but his eyes still swam. “Give me...five. Okay, maybe ten.”

The pilot hesitated, a hand rubbing his eyes. “Then how is leaving you here better?” he asked, slouching against the far wall.

For Clint, everything felt softer than it should, and the world tilted more than once as he tried to settle his stare on the pilot. “I’ve got training,” he told the pilot when his eyes could focus, and kept his gaze locked that direction as he grimaced. “Trust me to use it.”

The pilot hesitated a moment, but that was all. He nodded and stood. “Sir,” he announced without a salute, then turned and headed out of the corridor, leaving Clint alone. Not for the first time, Clint was grateful that SHIELD had managed to place spies in like him Stark’s staff; he knew the plane would be ready once this confrontation was over.

He hoped he’d be on it.

Confrontation. Right. Better get to it, then.

Still woozy, Clint opened the control panel on the wall above the escape. The configuration was standard, something he recognized from training - Howard Stark had, after all, been a principal consultant to SHIELD in its early years. He set the timer, then settled his quiver inside, enough weight to trigger it to go. That left him with three arrows and heads, just enough to do what he expected would be necessary.

The escape pod started its countdown, the voice robotic and tinny, and Clint waited beside. When the countdown reached five, he got to his knees, At one, he crouched beside it. When it launched, he was close by, coughing in the unexpected fumes – it’d been so long since SHIELD used that kind of fuel – and glanced through the hole the pod left behind. Perfect – exactly like the blueprints.

Clint got to his feet, slid into the tunnel behind the pod, and started feeling his way along the corridor, counting steps so he knew when to turn, to climb, and finally, to drop. His guts churned and his head pounded, but he didn’t hesitate. _Three more minutes_ , he thought. _Make it that far_.

*****

_LISTEN._

Talk, and talk, and more talk, but Banner cannot hear. Hulk screams rage, knowing it won’t help. Stupid dreams only make talking harder. Banner does not see.

HIS job to think. HIS job to understand. Why does Hulk have to push? Hulk fights; Banner thinks. And the in between…is…

Banner cowers, and that is worse. _LOOK!_ Hulk roars. _SEE!_ He points to the blank horizon, snatching Banner up in one great hand and whirling him that direction.

******

The door finally battered down, Fix-It dragged Betty out of the hall and into darkness. At this point, she was little more than insurance, and he wasn’t wasting energy giving her a nice ride after she nearly blew a hole in his chest. 

He was in. 

This was the Hulk lab, the place Fix-It had only glimpsed in nightmares. The space that had taken over their lives this past year. The place where he’d found his way out.

Fix-It smiled and stretched to full height. Here, he'd finish what he started; this was where it would all begin. He reached into a pocket to find the device so carefully created in dark hours, thick fingers massaging its surface. So many nights spent building it, pulling information carefully from Bruce’s dreams, growing stronger with every discovery. Tony had built the lab to interface with Bruce’s subconscious, find fear or pain that could be manipulated to push them over the edge and into transformation. Even now, as he fixed electrodes to his temples and to the base of his skull, Fix-It felt those moments, every one a torture pulled from their depths and grotesquely exposed.

“Tony fucking Stark,” Fix-It growled. “Genius. Billionaire. _Asshole_." He smiled slowly, adjusting the device in his hand until he’d calibrated a connection to the lab. “It’s my turn.”

*****

“Tony.” Pepper voice was quiet, nearly a whisper. “Is this –“

“Yes,” Tony answered, one hand raised and readied with the beta version of the repulsor he’d found in the basement. He found a wall and put his back to it, inching along as he scanned the vast space. “Which means, really, _anything_ could happen.”

Pepper shuddered, her own repulsor held chest-high. “I am _so_ going to kick your ass when we get back to the tower.”

Lights suddenly came on, blinding them both as they bounced off freshly painted white walls, floor, ceiling. A growl, low and dark, came from some spot far enough away that Pepper couldn’t make it out, followed by dark laughter, words they couldn’t make out. 

“Tony? Tony, should we - “

“ _Fire!_ ” Tony shouted, and they both did, too late. A gray mass launched itself into the air, twisting to avoid a second round of attacks, and hurtled their direction fast.

Pepper snatched Tony’s arm and pulled them both backwards. Tony snarled and tried to break away, readying the repulsor for another blast as Fix-It landed right in front of them, shaking the floor hard enough to knock both Tony and Pepper off their feet. Tony’s shot went wild.

“Nice of you two to join the party,” Fix-It sneered. The creature had Betty’s limp form over one shoulder. “Shoulda brought the redhead.” 

Tony tried to fire his repulsor again, but Fix-It’s hand flashed out and snatched the device away, crushing it in a great gray fist. “I think we’ve had enough of Tony Stark’s brand of help.” Pieces of metal fell from his fingers as he turned Pepper’s direction. “Turn yours over before nicely,” he offered, “and I won’t have to smash _her_.” He poked the woman on his shoulder, causing her to groan.

Pepper didn’t think, and didn’t listen as both Tony and Natasha tried to tell her what to do. She put down the makeshift repulsor and kicked it Fix-It’s direction. He, in turn, took Betty off his shoulder and shoved her boneless form Pepper’s way. 

Tony’s hands fisted at his sides. “Listen, you over-muscled mass, if you don’t - “

“Oh, shut _up_ , Stark!” Fix-It’s hands fisted as well, the snarl he wore on his lips audible in his words. “Why the fuck do you think I’m _here_? How do you think all this _works_?” Fix-It paced, creating cracks in the floor, making the room shudder. “Banner’s mind has been splintering for _months_ thanks to your ‘help,’ and guess what happens when he doesn’t want to deal?” He whirled, and pointed a massive finger Tony’s way. “I’ll tell ya what happens. He _doesn’t_.”

Fix-It’s words echoed off the walls as he stuck that finger in the man’s chest. “ _You_ listen, you self-indulgent, spoiled, sociopathic little loser - what you put your BFF through in the name of curiosity kicked up nightmares not even _Ross_ managed to unearth. Not with helicopters or sound cannons or fucking _nukes_.” Nostrils flared, and Pepper could hear the giant’s teeth grinding. “And _you_ , you little monster...you’re the worst of all - the friend who told that broken boy that all the hurt you put him through was for his own _good_.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed, his jaw worked, and Pepper knew what came next. She stood up and grabbed Tony’s elbow. “Don’t do it,” she pleaded, though the bunched muscles in his shoulders suggested it was already too late. “Tony, don’t - “

“Problem is,” Fix-It interrupted, eyes glinting, “Brucie believed you.” Tony snarled out loud, and Fix-It grinned wide. “ _Trusted_ you. And look where it got him.” He ignored Tony and paced away, leaving the man shaking in anger. “Go find your heart elsewhere, Tin Man; Bruce doesn’t want to come back.”

“The _hell_ he doesn’t,” Tony shot back. Fix-It’s laugh put him over the edge.


	31. Chapter 31

The drop was deeper than Clint expected, and his legs buckled with the impact. Nothing twisted or broke, though, so after a moment of letting his head settle, he got up and moved on. He could hear Pepper and Tony now, and repulsor fire, and worried he might be too late. That only got him moving faster.

Within a few seconds, he’d found the vent above the Hulk lab, usually used to ventilate the knockout gas Tony had created. The fan was inactive, so Clint could straddle one of the center mounts and look below. Several floors below, a tiny Tony paced as Pepper watched. Betty was sprawled on the ground beside her, barely moving, and the big gray thing that had surprised him in the tower was pacing hard enough to make the room rattle. Pepper was touching Tony, but that didn’t stop him from lurching forward suddenly and wheeling a fist at the gray thing’s jaw.

The laugh that followed that echoed in the vast hall as Tony took a swing before a massive hand shoved him off his feet.

“Shit, Tony,” Clint murmured to himself, readying an arrow. “Can’t leave you alone for ten minutes without - “

A ripple started through the room as if it were a mirage, water on the horizon. Clint couldn’t make out the people any more; it seemed for a moment that there was just one, then a dozen, then nothing but a mass that roiled on imaginary waves. Heat rose from the room, making Clint’s head throb hard enough that he couldn’t focus on a target.

Dammit, he wished he had his communicator so he could ask what the others were seeing. If, that is, they still worked in that room, where Tony had once bragged reality bent to his wishes. “Danger room’s got nothing on Stark tech,” he’d said, patting one of the many devices in the control room. “All I have to do is think it, and the room sets to making it possible.”

Genius, yes. But Tony still had his blind spots, and Bruce Banner was his biggest. Clint felt sure that Bruce had as much access to the Hulk Lab’s infrastructure as Tony did, and that meant that anyone else inhabiting Bruce’s body stood a better than average chance of having the same. And everyone else - well, Tony would have considered them a threat, which meant Natasha would find shutting it down nearly impossible.

The ripples grew and split apart, until the entire room seemed lost, a pool disturbed by heavy rains, and Clint had to close his eyes to keep from losing either his balance or the paltry remains in his stomach. Seconds stretched until, at last, there was a soft whirring, a hum that he recognized from his last visit here. The sound of beginning.

Daring a look, Clint found the room settled into impossibility, and waited for a target.

*****

The displays in front of Natasha went black just as Fix-It turned his back on Tony. She looked up just in time to see Fix-It tucking something back into a pocket, then the forward displays blinked out as well. Natasha heard Tony snarl and start to say something, but the communicators cut off before he got to words.

“Stark? Potts? Ross?” Natasha knew it useless to try and raise them. She knew a lockout when she saw one.

“I _really_ didn’t want to do this the hard way,” she murmured, checking her weapons as she stepped away from the controls and scanned the room. Her mind raced over the plans she’d found earlier, plotting both entrance and exit locations before she spoke again. “Any teams out there that can hear me - I’m locked out of the system. Moving in as planned. Be ready for him in case he escapes the room, and watch out for hostages.”

Fury’s voice cut in. “Team 2, report. Are you operational?”

“Running final tests now, Director.”

“The time for testing is over. You fire that thing up, and stand ready to use it on Romanov’s mark.”

Silence followed, just long enough for Natasha to wonder if the comms had been disrupted outside the room as well. She found the ladder she needed, planted her feet, and jumped to grab the lowest railing. It rattled down from the ceiling, sounding far more like a bad fire escape in Brooklyn than something that belonged in a Stark facility. It had seen some serious wear, as the warped tunnel into which it led attested.

“Sir,” a hesitant voice came as Natasha started up the ladder into darkness, “we don’t have any way to know how this might impact everyone else in the facility. After all, gamma radiation is a natural –“

Natasha stepped into the tunnel. A single weak light tried to illuminate the wrecked space, but its rays couldn’t penetrate the myriad dents and crumples in the walls and floor. She heard Fury reprimanding Team 2, reminding them that two-thirds of the equipment they worked with said Hulkbuster on the side, so they should have been prepared for drastic measures, but she tuned it out as she picked her way down the tunnel to the round room at its end.

Or, what was left of it.

Obviously, the Hulk had taken a dislike to this space at some point. The outline of one great fist jutted up from the floor, and part of the metal had been sheared away to open a hole to the room below. The room had been so crushed that Natasha had to squeeze through a small opening on the north side just to find a spot to plant her feet and look down.

The situation wasn’t good. The room rippled and shifted, becoming slowly more formless as she watched, indications of exactly what she and Fury had both feared this new monster would do. If Tony and Pepper and Fix-It were in there, she couldn’t find them. The room seemed as it were boiling underneath her. 

And, indeed, heat rose, washing over her in a nauseating wave, strong enough to stick her hair to her neck and her skin to her clothes, reminding her too much of fire, and hospital corridors, and the screams and pops that followed her out the window and down to the ground, and why was this coming back to her _now_ , when -

“Romanov? Report.” 

Fury’s voice anchored her, pulled her out of the past that had threatened for a moment to take over. Natasha put memory aside and looked down – no hospital fire. No bodies. In fact, the room below her seemed to have come undone, shifting and changing. The only steady figures were Fix-It and Tony, facing one another, both tense with barely controlled fury. 

This could not end well. “Sir,” she answered Fury, putting away her gun as she pulled a hook and line from her belt, searching for a place to secure it. “Better prep for plan C.”

*****

It had been in the corner of the pantry, still hidden behind fifty-year-old rations. The place was climate controlled, so little dust had settled, but the decades had aged the circuits and connections. 

Still, Tony felt certain that the sphere - his six-year-old self’s first attempt at creating something his father would be proud of - would do enough damage to wipe that toothy smile off Fix-It’s smug-ass face. He ignored the pain in his chest where Fix-It had flicked him to the ground and got his hand wrapped around the device in his jacket pocket.

“Fine,” Tony growled as he sat up. Fix-It paused, raising an eyebrow as he glanced over his shoulder, the leads to the electrodes at his temples drawing taut down to the device in his palm, and paused - just enough for Tony to pull out the sphere, press a button, and launch it Fix-It’s way.

“Wha -” Fix-It started, eyes widening as he lifted his free hand to bat the sphere away. Before he could, though, metal scraped against metal, a dozen no longer well-oiled sliders moving out of the way for the lasers they held back. Tony dragged Pepper to ground with him, shielding both of their eyes.

Then light split the air, Fix-It howled, and the room lurched suddenly into unreality.

*****

Clint had a plan. He’d figured the gray guy was heading for the Hulk lab and likely had a way to control it. Beyond that, he didn’t have any idea what the man had planned, but he felt fairly sure it wasn’t good news for Bruce or the rest of the world at large. So Clint peered carefully at the biggest mass in the room, looking for whatever controller he’d concocted.

It was in his hand.

“Perfect,” Clint murmured to himself, cocking an arrow and taking careful aim. His focus sharpened on the target, narrowing his vision down to a precise point as he pulled back on the bow and prepared to let go.

Then something flashed on the edge of his vision, hurtling through the air. Clint blinked and looked, just in time to see Tony drag Pepper to the floor and cover her.

Shit.

The big guy tried to bat it away, but howled in pain as light suddenly burst from the sphere and tore a gash in his arm. And more light was coming, all around the sphere, dozens of lasers whining to life…

Tony had good aim. The thing was headed straight for Fix-It’s head, and the guy didn’t have time to get down.

“ _Fuck, Tony,_ ” Clint growled, and let his arrow fly.


	32. Chapter 32

_LOOK!_

Bruce felt himself spread thin, weakening at the seams. His head was screaming, or he was; he couldn’t tell the difference any more. Hulk had him in one great fist, holding him out, squeezing the breath out of Bruce’s lungs, and that was impossible.

This was all impossible.

The blankness around them broke into static that hissed loud enough to drown out the screams, but couldn’t drown out Hulk’s roaring fury in his own mind, so strong it was suffocating him. _LOOK!_ Hulk roared, over and over, static taking over while he tried to force Bruce to focus, while Bruce refused to look.

But Hulk didn’t relent, even as the static grew larger and louder, washing them both away - their outlines, their bodies, their very thoughts - until they were nothing but shadow, a memory of difference and time. And still Hulk’s roars followed, until -

Bruce stood on the hill where he’d run dozens of times as a child, the one overlooking the base, making it appear smaller and more distant than it was. At the top, the government had planted trees long ago, to stop the erosion of what little soil remained here on the outskirts of a desert. They provided cover from the sun. A windbreak. A place to hide when all the places inside had been exhausted.

He wasn’t alone.

“‘Bout time you opened your eyes,” the gray mass crouched in the clearing muttered. Its face was marred, burned or cut or something, the eyes squinted in barely-concealed pain. Blood covered his chest and right arm.

“SEE.” Hulk’s huge hand settled against Bruce’s back, pushed him forward gently. He radiated anger, barely holding himself back from tearing the trees from their roots and sending them into the sky. He knew this place, too; Bruce could feel Hulk’s thoughts as clearly as his own. And the felt the other one’s too - his frustration, his pain.

His fear.

“Fix-It,” Bruce said quietly. Hulk snorted and tore up a tree by the roots, hefting it in one hand, pondering a swing.

“Nice ta finally meet, Brucie boy,” Fix-It answered, slumping against the nearest tree. “We need to talk.”

****

Natasha saw the sphere, saw the laser, and knew what was coming.   
“ _Now_ , Team 2!” she shouted as she dropped the line she’d secured earlier. The lasers would take off some of it, but that would be close enough to the floor. She wrapped a gloved hand around the attached pulley and swung out of the tunnel just as an arrow caught the sphere and sent lasers cutting in a dozen directions, including hers.

Another arrow followed an instant later, catching her side with a blunt tip and swinging her wide. The laser missed. She dropped the line and fell, tucking her knees as her feet hit the ground. It hurt, but she ignored it long enough to roll, pull out her guns, and aim for the sphere. Three shots and the center exploded; scrap metal flew.

The room was chaos - fire and bullets and screams and roars. Only one mass on the floor, gray and still, seemed unchanged.

“The device is active,” someone on the comms responded as Natasha dodged an oncoming blast of fire. Its heat proved that these weren’t just illusions. She ran for cover, diving behind a shack that had rippled into existence a few yards away. Tony was there, face ashen, empty hands in his lap.

“Natasha!” Pepper called over the comms that worked now that they were all in the room. “Can you tell if…I mean, Is Fix-It -”

“Down,” Natasha answered, holding Tony’s gaze, “Fix-It is down.” She grabbed Tony by the collar and hauled him to his feet as she stopped transmitting. “On your feet. Worry about your homicidal knee-jerk reaction later; I need you to make this room stop going crazy before it kills all of us.”

*****

“See, here’s the deal.” Fix-It grimaced in pain as he adjusted his position to better face the others. “Your best friend’s a dick.”

Hulk snorted. Bruce frowned. Somewhere out there, people were fighting; the distant roar of gunfire and flames haunted the background. Clint and Tony and Pepper were likely caught up in it, with others. Anger rose, and Bruce felt his fists clench, wanting to launch and tear and throw, wanting to unleash the Big Guy and tear this place down if it would help them.

“And so are you.” Fix-It continued, ignoring the fury hanging between them. “You treat us like absolute _shit_ , Bruce,” he grunted, struggling to find his feet. “I mean, _look_ at me. Shot to hell by your ex-fiance; sliced into a dozen pieces when your buddy threw a fit because you wouldn’t come out and play…” He grunted, pulling his ruined shirt away from his skin with a wet squelch. “I’m a fuckin’ _mess_ , and all you can think about is everyone out there.”

His words got Bruce’s attention, and he focused on the grey thing in front of him. Its - his - eyes watered with pain, the hand resting on his chest turning slowly red. Good, a part of him thought, hating what Fix-It had done, what he wanted to do. “I don’t want this,” he answered, jaw working against clenched teeth, eyes circling between Fix-It and Hulk. “I just want to be left alone.” 

Fix-It snorted, leaning heavily against the nearest tree. “You don’t want us?” he asked, one hand on the trunk, slowly pushing himself to full height. He hovered over Bruce, wet eyes still dark with malice. “You _made_ us, Brucie boy, and ain’t no way you can unmake us. You need us, Banner. We won’t go away.”

Part of Bruce recoiled from those words, reverberating truth deep in his belly. He didn’t want to know, felt like he _couldn’t_ and stay whole. But when he tried to move away, but Hulk’s giant bulk landed in front of him, wielding the tree like a billy club, tapping it against one massive palm. His eyes, too, were dark and hating, and Bruce didn’t understand. Hadn’t they been working toward truce? Hadn’t they been sharing? Weren’t things _better?_

“ _Better_?” Fix-It laughed and coughed, a wet, thick sound. “Bruce, you gotta start facing facts.” He leaned back against the tree, and Bruce saw blood oozing through the remains of cloth on his chest. “‘Cept time is running out, thanks to you, so excuse us if we’re a little less than delicate.”

Pain slammed into Bruce as sudden as thought, ripping open his chest to lay skin and bone bare. He wanted to scream, but his lungs couldn’t take air. His legs crumpled as Hulk roared, launching his tree into the sky. It disappeared as Bruce collapsed to his knees, then to his side.

_Fix this_. The thought was clear, though the voice wasn’t any of theirs. Bruce lost himself as the words echoed in sudden emptiness.

*****  
 _Holy shit_ , Tony thought. _I did this_.

The room broke into a hundred scenes, all of them horrific. The air was thick with the smell of burning flesh and rotting things and dusty, dank crawlspaces. He couldn’t see Betty or Pepper.

He didn’t know if they were still alive.

Bullets whizzed past, catching Natasha’s hair, reminding Tony how real the fabrications in the Hulk Lab could be. She grabbed his elbow and shoved them behind cover, scanning threats while she listened to whatever came across the communicators. Tony’s had disappeared, so he only got one side of the conversation. “Keep it running,” she said, glancing toward the ceiling. “And send a team to retrieve him.”

“They can’t come in here,” Tony started to answer, but Natasha held up a hand, and there was no arguing with that. So his eyes searched for the one who’d brought them here, who had taunted Tony into ensuring that the guy went down.

Down. He’d taken a dozen shots to the chest from a master markswoman and kept moving, but the lasers - which should have done less damage, Tony thought - had done it. Tony could still hear that roar that preceded the fall - not of fury, but pain - and clenched his hands considering the possibilities. 

No - he wasn’t dead. The violence and insanity surrounding them was proof enough that there was still a mind attached to the device running the show, a mind that had seen far more horror in the world than anyone should have to process.

“Come on.” Natasha grabbed his elbow again and pulled them into a run, dodging thrown plates, a hammer tossed at her head. They ran through the chaos, sometimes passing through ideas barely formed, often dodging and diving to avoid those that had become all too real. She stopped only when she found a wall and put her back to it, pulling Tony to it beside her. She scanned the room with studied, calculating eyes, keeping guns ready at her side. No one on the team faced danger with equal aplomb.

Can you fix this?” she yelled over the sound of tank fire, and Tony knew immediately he could.

“Southwest corner,” he shouted back, orienting himself in what he hoped was the right direction. “Get me there and I can end this.”

Natasha studied his face a moment, expressionless, then nodded once, aiming guns the direction Tony pointed. “This may be messy,” she warned, and starting firing.

*****

Betty’s hand twitched.

Pepper squeezed gently, unable to see the other woman in the sudden darkness that surrounded them. She could smell fuel and grass and old wood and something...wrong. Something that had gone off, a long time ago.

Betty coughed, groaned, stirred.

“Careful,” Pepper suggested quietly, feeling for Betty’s shoulder to keep her from moving too much. “You took a good whack.”

“Yeah,” Betty grunted, hissing in pain. “Wow. Yeah.” She lifted herself carefully, letting Pepper’s hands guide her to a sitting position. “Any idea where we are?”

Pepper’s eyes were adjusting; she could make out the shape of tools hanging on the wall across from them, the bulk of a tall table along one wall. A lawnmower. It didn’t make sense, but then, the room had erupted into senselessness the moment Fix-It fell. She remembered the sound of that device slicing through the air, the feel of the floor underneath her and Tony above her, Tony’s whisper at her ear as a scream split the room:

_Don’t get up, baby._

She didn’t, but Tony did, and soon he’d disappeared into the maelstrom of violence that had erupted around them. Pepper shouted for him, but a screaming fight between two unknown people a few feet away drowned her out. By the time she’d rolled over and found Betty’s hand, the space they occupied had gone dark and was, just now, starting to form into something nearly real.

Betty found the closest wall and propped her back against it. The world swam in front of her, but seemed willing to settle slowly. She could pick out a stool on her right side, a set of metal and wooden shelves directly to her left, pegboard on the far wall. “How -”

“Hulk Lab,” Pepper answered before Betty could finish. “Tony’s design. It captures...things. Bad memories. Something that can be used to trigger -”

“The Hulk.” Betty recognized what she saw. The lab where they’d tested the serum, Bruce still straining and screaming in the chair as gamma rays flooded his system. Hulk on campus, holding a sonic cannon at bay with the remnants of a tank, trying desperately to stay on his feet. On the helicarrier, tearing things apart, his mind lost to chaos. They surrounded Pepper and Betty, a Hulk on every side, each one fighting, roaring, hating.

“He can’t take all of this.” Betty knew it was true before she said it, clutching Pepper’s arm tight. “Pepper, if we can’t stop - “

Pepper nodded, scanning the room, eyes everywhere but on Betty. “This will kill him,” she responded, not looking for confirmation. She got to her feet, pulling Betty with her. “So let’s not let that happen.”

******

“Report, Team 2.”

Fury paced above the action, wish for better visuals on the scene. Barton was out of the fight, as far as he could tell, and Romanov had Tony to wrangle, so couldn’t focus on the target. That left Team 2’s silent weapon as the only one active right now against the thing that had managed to outmaneuver their surveillance.

“V-127 is active and holding, sir.” The connection broke against the miles of concrete and metal. “Gamma signs decreasing outside the barrier, increasing inside. It seems to be functioning as expected.”

“ _Range_?” 

The communications stuttered, several voices competing on the other end. Scientists were always so terrible at following chains of command. “Brandeski!”

Fury shout silenced the others, and Team 2’s lead came on line. “More than adequate, sir. In fact, I worry that we may drain the energy from some of the remote structures on the surface, leaving them without -”

“Fine,” Fury interrupted. If a few generators or power lines ended up drained, people would be inconvenienced. If Fix-It’s gamma energy couldn’t be corralled, though, lots more than inconvenience was at stake. “Keep it running.”

“Sir?” Huerrera’s voice. “If - if he comes for this, if he can trace the device, then - “

Then. As if Fury hadn’t considered that option, weighed the odds, made his choices. “You don’t leave, Huerrera. Do you understand?”

Silence. That was enough for Fury. He switched channels as an incoming signal appeared on the screen before him. Natasha.

“We’re at a console,” she told Fury. “Stark’s on it.”

Fury gritted his teeth. “He knows the risks?”

“No, sir.”

“Good.” Fury nodded to empty space, focusing on action, delaying any feelings of hope or concern. They could come later. Right now, “Keep him on task.”


	33. Chapter 33

Antiseptic. Bleach. Rot.

Bruce recognized the scents even before he could see anything, making his insides clench. He smelled terror and pain and people he didn’t know who wanted to expose everything. Everything.

Half of his boy body was wrapped tightly in bandages that made his skin scream, and he wanted more than anything else to run. But strangers stood in the doorway, and Mom was at his side.

And Dad. Eyes red and running tears, Mom’s delicate fingers curled in his hair, holding his head to her shoulder.

“ - lucky to be alive,” he heard the man in the doorway finish from somewhere far away as his senses returned. “But you have to understand, this kind of damage takes a long time to heal, and it’ll be a while before he can go anywhere. We’re going to need to keep his wounds clean, and…”

Words trailed away as Bruce remembered where he was - in the hospital, after the shed fire. He’d started gaining consciousness as the doctor tried to explain, as Mom held Dad as if he were the wounded one, as his skin lit with pain and fire. He remembered wanting to scream, to tell Mom to send everyone away before they found out, before they knew everything and started tearing their whole lives apart…

He hated. Oh, he _hated_ , at that moment. But even more, he wanted everyone outside to leave them all alone, because people from outside always made it worse inside.

“Mom?” he said aloud, and his voice was stronger than he expected, even...calm. Her head swiveled to him, and so did Dad’s, and four eyes filled with tears. But it was Dad who reached out first, who pulled him into an embrace that set his whole body on fire all over again.

“Brian,” Mom tried, but Dad only held on tighter, salty tears falling on his son’s burned shoulder, and Bruce pulled himself inside to hide, unable to take all the fear and pain and hate and so much more he didn’t have thoughts for. He pulled inside, and his body stayed calm and still in its father’s arms. He watched from within as a small hand lifted - his own, but not Bruce’s - and patted his father’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” the voice that wasn’t Bruce’s whispered. “Dad, don’t cry. I’ll fix it.”

The grip with which his father held his boy sent the child into seizures, but Bruce never felt them. He faded back and let someone else step in.

*****

Displays flickered, shrunk, and popped back into place with an audible snap. That wasn’t right.

“What’s SHIELD doing?” Tony called over his shoulder, working madly away at the rather impressive network of lockouts Fix-It had managed to build. Jarvis had no access, so his work relied on local power and data only. The former should have been steady, but seemed to be blinking out, and the latter was - well, the best Tony had to work with. 

Natasha was still standing guard at the door of the lab, gun in one hand, a long piece of metal in the other. She’d had to knock out one of the door controls to get past some monstrous mutated giant wielding a report card like a weapon, and the damned door got stuck open. Good news: they made it to the control room. Bad news: the Hulk Lab apparitions followed. She didn’t need Tony’s question, and chose to ignore it by swinging at some massively deformed soldier who crumpled and disappeared the moment metal touched skin. 

“Fine.” Tony untangled one of the locks and tossed it aside, mind a hundred miles ahead. “Three guesses, then. One: they’ve got a super-powered massive...gun-thing...pointing downward and ready to fire, and they’re draining our power to keep it online.”

“Little busy here,” Natasha answered, dodging a volley of arrows - arrows, really? - to close on a Gatlin gun and disarm it before it could fire. “Take it up with Fury when - “

“Two,” Tony interrupted. The threads were starting to unravel, and his fingers raced to catch up with his thoughts. Challenging Natasha was just the distraction he needed to stay focused. “They’ve booby-trapped the base to blow if anyone leaves before they give the go-ahead to make sure Mr. Dick-wad can’t go on a gray-skinned rampage.”

Natasha’s eyes rolled. She put a bullet into each tire of a Jeep careening their way, watching as it rolled over and faded away before it hit her. At the door of the lab again, she took a moment to examine Tony - tight back, tilted head, pinched brow. Focused. Hurt.

Angry.

“Or _three_ ,” he shouted over the sudden throb of helicopter blades, his heart thudding with its rhythm, “SHIELD set off a fucking _gamma negator_ in my lab. With Bruce in it.” Tony stopped unraveling code. Natasha was expressionless as ever, but her eyes dropped a moment - just long enough to make Tony’s mouth twitch, eyes harden.

“You _know_ what that will do to him, Agent Romanov?” Tony’s voice, low and dangerous, was barely audible, but he could see Natasha got the gist of what he’d said. He went back to work on the locks, trying not to think of the spikes in gamma that accompanied even a bruise to Bruce’s skin. Spikes that, they’d theorized, were somehow generated by Bruce’s body _itself_ – as if part of him ran on that energy, even thrived on it. And if they were right, then a gamma negator…

Shit. Too many problems to focus on one at a time. Tony had to trust the part of him that knew the lab intimately do what it needed to do so he could think of a way to get to that negator and blast it to pieces before it could prove their theory right.

Natasha had too many problems to pay attention to Tony, too. She turned her back on him, shut out his words, used guns and shockers and a metal pole to take out the stress of the situation on a dozen illusions just real enough to land punches that hurt. She lost herself in the job as Tony hurled words like boulders and Fury kept demanding updates from Team 2. She threw one of the imaginary soldiers into another, took a third to the ground with a blow to the head, a fourth with a well-placed shot to the throat. They kept coming, and she kept fighting, because she knew exactly what Tony meant and didn’t want to think about Team 2 and the device that -

****

“- doesn’t have an off switch.” 

They sat in a circle in the blasted remains of the base where the Hulk had been born, in the heart of the crater where he’d beaten the ground until even tanks bounced. They’d been there long enough to watch shadows change as the sun in their internal world moved just as they remembered it – too fast, seeming to hurtle toward the darkness, when the danger was worst.

They’d been talking – or, something akin to talking. In the middle of the crater, they settled close to one another, sharing thoughts like whispers in a crowd, a cacophony of silence.

Fix-It was on his back now, blood coming thick and slow, his gray skin even more ashen. Bruce curled close by, picking at the ground, trying to take in what he’d learned – Fix-It, and the hospital, and so many moments since then that didn’t belong to him or his now-familiar counterpart. And trying to ignore what his veins told him - that Fix-It had lost too much in that last attack and wouldn’t be standing up again. Hulk looked on, glowering at them both, fists curled at his sides as his chest heaved. Hulk had known, for so long – he’d been reaching out for months, trying to get either Fix-It or Bruce to stop hiding, stop working at odds, and just _look. See_.

No wonder Hulk was so angry. They were all in a bad place now, and it was starting to look like the exits were all blocked.

Fix-It tried to laugh. “Didn’t I call it?” He snarled, struggling to his knees, trying to get feet under him. “Brucie boy, you’ve been one foot in the grave ever since Dad tried to send you there the first time, and now you’ve gone and brought us with you.” His legs tried to buckle, but Hulk kept him from falling, fingers giant even against Fix-It’s massive body. Fix-It cleared his throat and found the edge of the crater with fumbling fingers, swaying as he pulled himself up, shaking his head. “In cagin’ yourself, you killed us all.”

Part of Bruce knew Fix-It was right. He could have kept the gamma negator a secret from Fury until it was complete. But when he started slipping in New York, when he and Tony started their experiments, he was simply too afraid to leave the world without some kind of backup. Even if, as he and Tony suspected, the device might actually destroy a part of Bruce that actually held him together – certainly, as two nearly-separate beings, but as something of a strange whole nonetheless. Yes, Bruce knew what he was doing when he turned the plans over to Fury after that first terrible accident, hiding the fact that the device would be able to keep itself running with enough gamma energy available – certainly, with the energy of the Hulk.

But Bruce also knew he’d done it to help them both have a chance, to give his alter ego an opportunity for something resembling a life while protecting the world should he get out of control. He’d tried to build a safety net – not just for themselves, but for the whole _world_ , to give the Big Guy a chance to actually _live_. Right?

Hulk’s eyes found Bruce’s as teeth ground loud enough to hear. His free hand shot out and grabbed Bruce, wrenching him off his feet to slam him down next to Fix-It. _NO_.

“No?” Bruce shouted back at the behemoth. His face flushed and fists clenched. Trapped here in nowhere, in his own mind, arguing his case with himself, and all he can get is - 

“ _No?_ That’s all you’re going to give me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fix-It grunted. “‘s done now. And don’t you _NO_ me, you lump,” he snarled as Hulk’s eyes swiveled his direction. “You know damn well what he’s done.”

“You’re blaming _me_?” Bruce stared at Fix-It, eyes too wide, nostrils flaring. “I was _helping_ us, with Tony, with the whole..” He couldn’t even think of a word. The word. “Lab. All of it. Since I got here, we were - “ 

Fix-It stood up straight and stalked Bruce’s way, grey gaze fixed, ignoring pain as his own eyes darkened. “ _Fuck_ you were. You’ve been playing Frankenstein with Stark this whole time, plotting away, feeding parts of us to him hoping he could tear you open and make sense of us. You _turned us over_ to him, Bruce – let him cut us, bleed us, until - “

“Until _you_ showed up and ruined it.” 

“I was _saving_ your ass!” Fix-It shoved Hulk’s hand away and put a finger in Bruce’s chest. “You ungrateful fucking _cur_ , if you’d just let -”

Bruce swatted Fix-It’s finger away, not even noticing as Hulk took a step back. He stepped forward, his face nearly in Fix-It’s own, huffing anger. “What? Let you take over?” His voice was barely audible, full of threat.

Fix-It stood taller, too, stronger than he’d been before. Steadier. He felt good, powerful, real. Bruce felt nothing but fury.

And Hulk smiled, settling back to wait, the words he’d been saying for months echoing in their minds as Bruce’s fist found Fix-It’s face first. _LOOK. SEE._


	34. Chapter 34

Antiseptic. Bleach. Rot.

Bruce recognized the scents even before he could see anything, making his insides clench. He smelled terror and pain and people he didn’t know who wanted to expose everything. Everything.

Half of his boy body was wrapped tightly in bandages that made his skin scream, and he wanted more than anything else to run. But strangers stood in the doorway, and Mom was at his side.

And Dad. Eyes red and running tears, Mom’s delicate fingers curled in his hair, holding his head to her shoulder.

“ - lucky to be alive,” he heard the man in the doorway finish from somewhere far away as his senses returned. “But you have to understand, this kind of damage takes a long time to heal, and it’ll be a while before he can go anywhere. We’re going to need to keep his wounds clean, and…”

Words trailed away as Bruce remembered where he was - in the hospital, after the shed fire. He’d started gaining consciousness as the doctor tried to explain, as Mom held Dad as if he were the wounded one, as his skin lit with pain and fire. He remembered wanting to scream, to tell Mom to send everyone away before they found out, before they knew everything and started tearing their whole lives apart…

He hated. Oh, he _hated_ , at that moment. But even more, he wanted everyone outside to leave them all alone, because people from outside always made it worse inside.

“Mom?” he said aloud, and his voice was stronger than he expected, even...calm. Her head swiveled to him, and so did Dad’s, and four eyes filled with tears. But it was Dad who reached out first, who pulled him into an embrace that set his whole body on fire all over again.

“Brian,” Mom tried, but Dad only held on tighter, salty tears falling on his son’s burned shoulder, and Bruce pulled himself inside to hide, unable to take all the fear and pain and hate and so much more he didn’t have thoughts for. He pulled inside, and his body stayed calm and still in its father’s arms. He watched from within as a small hand lifted - his own, but not Bruce’s - and patted his father’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” the voice that wasn’t Bruce’s whispered. “Dad, don’t cry. I’ll fix it.”

The grip with which his father held his boy sent the child into seizures, but Bruce never felt them. He faded back and let someone else step in.

*****

Displays flickered, shrunk, and popped back into place with an audible snap. That wasn’t right.

“What’s SHIELD doing?” Tony called over his shoulder, working madly away at the rather impressive network of lockouts Fix-It had managed to build. Jarvis had no access, so his work relied on local power and data only. The former should have been steady, but seemed to be blinking out, and the latter was - well, the best Tony had to work with. 

Natasha was still standing guard at the door of the lab, gun in one hand, a long piece of metal in the other. She’d had to knock out one of the door controls to get past some monstrous mutated giant wielding a report card like a weapon, and the damned door got stuck open. Good news: they made it to the control room. Bad news: the Hulk Lab apparitions followed. She didn’t need Tony’s question, and chose to ignore it by swinging at some massively deformed soldier who crumpled and disappeared the moment metal touched skin. 

“Fine.” Tony untangled one of the locks and tossed it aside, mind a hundred miles ahead. “Three guesses, then. One: they’ve got a super-powered massive...gun-thing...pointing downward and ready to fire, and they’re draining our power to keep it online.”

“Little busy here,” Natasha answered, dodging a volley of arrows - arrows, really? - to close on a Gatlin gun and disarm it before it could fire. “Take it up with Fury when - “

“Two,” Tony interrupted. The threads were starting to unravel, and his fingers raced to catch up with his thoughts. Challenging Natasha was just the distraction he needed to stay focused. “They’ve booby-trapped the base to blow if anyone leaves before they give the go-ahead to make sure Mr. Dick-wad can’t go on a gray-skinned rampage.”

Natasha’s eyes rolled. She put a bullet into each tire of a Jeep careening their way, watching as it rolled over and faded away before it hit her. At the door of the lab again, she took a moment to examine Tony - tight back, tilted head, pinched brow. Focused. Hurt.

Angry.

“Or _three_ ,” he shouted over the sudden throb of helicopter blades, his heart thudding with its rhythm, “SHIELD set off a fucking gamma negator in my lab. With Bruce in it.” Tony stopped unraveling code. Natasha was expressionless as ever, but her eyes dropped a moment - just long enough to make Tony’s mouth twitch, eyes harden.

“You know what that will do to him, Agent Romanov?” Tony’s voice, low and dangerous, was barely audible, but he could see Natasha got the gist of what he’d said. He went back to work on the locks, trying not to think of the spikes in gamma that accompanied even a bruise to Bruce’s skin. Spikes that, they’d theorized, were somehow generated by Bruce’s body _itself_ – as if part of him ran on that energy, even thrived on it. And if they were right, then a gamma negator…

Shit. Too many problems to focus on one at a time. Tony had to trust the part of him that knew the lab intimately do what it needed to do so he could think of a way to get to that negator and blast it to pieces before it could prove their theory right.

Natasha had too many problems to pay attention to Tony, too. She turned her back on him, shut out his words, used guns and shockers and a metal pole to take out the stress of the situation on a dozen illusions just real enough to land punches that hurt. She lost herself in the job as Tony hurled words like boulders and Fury kept demanding updates from Team 2. She threw one of the imaginary soldiers into another, took a third to the ground with a blow to the head, a fourth with a well-placed shot to the throat. They kept coming, and she kept fighting, because she knew exactly what Tony meant and didn’t want to think about Team 2 and the device that -

****

“- doesn’t have an off switch.” 

They sat in a circle in the blasted remains of the base where the Hulk had been born, in the heart of the crater where he’d beaten the ground until even tanks bounced. They’d been there long enough to watch shadows change as the sun in their internal world moved just as they remembered it – too fast, seeming to hurtle toward the darkness, when the danger was worst.

They’d been talking – or, something akin to talking. In the middle of the crater, they settled close to one another, sharing thoughts like whispers in a crowd, a cacophony of silence.

Fix-It was on his back now, blood coming thick and slow, his gray skin even more ashen. Bruce curled close by, picking at the ground, trying to take in what he’d learned – Fix-It, and the hospital, and so many moments since then that didn’t belong to him or his now-familiar counterpart. And trying to ignore what his veins told him - that Fix-It had lost too much in that last attack and wouldn’t be standing up again. Hulk looked on, glowering at them both, fists curled at his sides as his chest heaved. Hulk had known, for so long – he’d been reaching out for months, trying to get either Fix-It or Bruce to stop hiding, stop working at odds, and just _look. See._

No wonder Hulk was so angry. They were all in a bad place now, and it was starting to look like the exits were all blocked.

Fix-It tried to laugh. “Didn’t I call it?” He snarled, struggling to his knees, trying to get feet under him. “Brucie boy, you’ve been one foot in the grave ever since Dad tried to send you there the first time, and now you’ve gone and brought us with you.” His legs tried to buckle, but Hulk kept him from falling, fingers giant even against Fix-It’s massive body. Fix-It cleared his throat and found the edge of the crater with fumbling fingers, swaying as he pulled himself up, shaking his head. “In cagin’ yourself, you killed us all.”

Part of Bruce knew Fix-It was right. He could have kept the gamma negator a secret from Fury until it was complete. But when he started slipping in New York, when he and Tony started their experiments, he was simply too afraid to leave the world without some kind of backup. Even if, as he and Tony suspected, the device might actually destroy a part of Bruce that actually held him together – certainly, as two nearly-separate beings, but as something of a strange whole nonetheless. Yes, Bruce knew what he was doing when he turned the plans over to Fury after that first terrible accident, hiding the fact that the device would be able to keep itself running with enough gamma energy available – certainly, with the energy of the Hulk.

But Bruce also knew he’d done it to help them both have a chance, to give his alter ego an opportunity for something resembling a life while protecting the world should he get out of control. He’d tried to build a safety net – not just for themselves, but for the whole _world_ , to give the Big Guy a chance to actually _live_. Right?

 

_NO_ , the Big Guy insisted, chest heaving. And Bruce knew he was right. The lab, the experiments, the precautions - he’d worked hard to make a place for himself in the world. In Tony’s world. A place that was his _alone_ \- which, of course, Bruce never was.

 

Fix-It coughed, a wet sound that left Bruce feeling queasy and weak. His body shook, and only the intervention of a great green hand kept him from collapsing. He tilted his head upward to meet angry eyes far too familiar and tried to express, to say out loud, what he understood deep within. And the monster held him upright, staring back, gritted teeth expressing what Bruce should have known all along.

 

_LOOK_ , Hulk insisted. _SEE_. And, for the first time, Bruce did.


End file.
